21

Today was my birthday.  I turned 21.  Two days ago, I woke up in the morning, my mind consumed with a life crisis (I don’t like using the term “mid-life crisis” because I think that’s ridiculous.  You don’t know when your life is going to end, thus, you have no idea when you’re in the mid-life stage.  If I die tonight after a bite from a Black Mamba, my mid-life crisis would’ve been when I was eleven and, in fifth grade, began studying for the SAT with the hopes of going to UCLA or USC Film School despite my parents urgings that artists did not make money, and I should probably plan on something more stable [*cough cough* medicine] to earn a living.)

So, the life crisis began as soon as I woke up.  I knew my birthday was fast approaching and I was concerned.  Not about turning twenty-one.  Is anyone upset about turning twenty-one?  No one I’ve ever met at least.  So I was excited about turning twenty-one, but my excitement quickly deteriorated into fear.  It didn’t feel like it was ten years since I made joke sketch-comedy videos with my friends in our basements in the style of Monty Python’s Spam skit (we called it Ham).  It didn’t feel like it’s been a decade since I was in elementary school.  I still remember the look of the hallways, and the way I felt walking through them.  All of this felt so recent, yet it had actually occurred an entire decade ago.  This in itself wasn’t scary.  But the more I thought, the more I realized:  it doesn’t stop.  That’s what got me.  Twenty-one is great, but who cares about twenty-two?  Twenty-five is probably the last big accomplishment year until fifty (you get to rent a car without surplus charges at twenty-five), but who wants to be fifty?  I mean, I want to live it be fifty, but I want youth.  But youth is fleeting.  I hadn’t felt this way until two days ago.  But at the same time, do I want it to stop?  Do I want to stay twenty-one forever?  No!  Heck no!  I’m a junior in college, which is fun, but definitely not what I foresee to be the best year of my life.  I have, what I like to call, pseudo-autonomy.  I make most of my decisions for myself, but if I were actually autonomous, I’m pretty sure I’d be hopelessly lost.  I still do everything I’m supposed to do, and there’s still so much I’m supposed to do to satisfy my school requirements and my family commitments.  I don’t know.  I’m going to turn around, and all of a sudden turn thirty…

Speaking of which, I dreamt that I woke up in my bed at home and I was like, “what?  What happened to my semester in Kenya?  Did I just forget the whole last two months?”  No.  I didn’t.  I was just dreaming.  But in that dream, it felt like I had not lived those two months because I had forgotten everything that happened.  I guess that’s the advantage to aging.  At least you can say those years happened, and at least for the most part, you can remember them.  When I was younger, I used to want to be eighteen and go to college SO BAD.  I was so excited to be an “adult,” that part of me just wished I could just fall asleep until then.  I would never wish that again.  Every day is so FUN!  Why would I want to miss just one in the course of my life. 

When I have life crises (if you know me, you know I tend to have these a lot) I like to re-shift my mindset.  I deal with them like I deal with a dysfunctional Game Boy:  hit the reset button.  Well, my re-set button is:  what adventures can I have now that I could’ve never had before.

IT'S LEGAL NOW B*TCHES!  IN EVERY COUNTRY ON EARTH!

1) Go drinking in a bar in the United States of America!  This will obviously have to wait until home, but I have had TWO drinks tonight (It’s legal in ALL countries on the face of the Earth, and I can talk about it on the internet because it is legal.)

2) Graduate from college (HOPEFULLY?!)!!

3) Everything you need a college degree to do.  (This is probably more exciting than the graduate from college bit.  You know, means to an ends…)

My future looks BRIGHT.  Maybe it’s just because of the Savanna Dry I’m imbibing, but I have high hopes for the next decade.  I’d like to do Teach for America.  I’d like to try my hand at screenwriting.  I’d like to seriously consider applying to medical school.  And after that, it just gets BRIGHTER!  Watch out!  Erisa Super Nova about to GAMMA RAYBURST!  And after that next decade, even more!  I’m very excited for collecting Social Security (assuming that’s still a thing and it’s not, like, one penny a month per retiree).