Twenty-One

Well, here I am. The last major milestone before the inexorable slide. The last time you're expected to be treated like a pampered kid, the apple of everybody's eye. The last time that your youth is expected to blaze white-hot in the minds of those that know you, and you can stand resplendent before everybody. Yes. Here I am. I am young, and I made it, and I am shockingly beautiful and triumphant, and I will never die.

God, I thought such rot about turning 21 when I was younger, didn't I? Expectation and reality never mesh, and for that I am grateful.

So. Today I aged again, in an official sense. I've traveled around the sun twenty-one times. I received a phone call from my sister and a voice mail from my grandmother. I've received around forty messages from people (both close friends and barely known extras on the stage play that my life is) on my Facebook page. I've received an expensive camera and a few months of saxophone hire so I can pick up music again.

I argued with people on the internet about racism, I dyed my hair, I got a drawing done of myself. I ate a cheeseburger, I had spaghetti on toast. I played video games for most of the day and evening. I went to class and read my book and shunned everybody. I watched TV with my girlfriend. I talked to a house guest.

In short, I tried my very hardest to pretend that nothing was happening at all, and lo and behold, very little did.

And I am happy.