Approaching the Age of Insignificance

So as of today, November 10, I am 22 years old. Or to put that in a better way, I am no longer 21. See, 21 is a cool age to be, it means you just hit the drinking age, which of course is a significant point in any young adult's life. To be no longer 21 is to be insignificant. Let's face it, you have so many "milestone" birthdays in such a short time. At 16, you can get a learner's permit and eventually a driver's license (although it takes some longer than others, but that's another column...) At 18, you can vote, which means you too can have your vote recounted endless numbers of times while people claim you voted twice for the same person or for two different people or whatever the hell it is they're arguing over in Florida. A brief sidebar to that, I can just see the "Don't blame me, I voted for Nader" bumper stickers running off the presses at this very moment.

Of course, 21 is the big one, especially for those of us who turned 21 while at college. For most, it becomes an orgy of alcohol; the infamous "21 shots" comes to mind, although if you actually remember your 21st birthday, you're most likely in the minority. In my case, turning 21 was not something I'd like to remember. Trust me, there is nothing worse than reaching the ultimate party age and being unable to celebrate because you are bed-ridden with the worst case of the flu you ever had in your life. I was drugged out on medication rather than drunk, and were I to have a choice, I would certainly opt for the kind that results in throwing up because you did too much, rather than doing nothing. Still, I enjoyed being 21, not that this year was any more special than past years, although I did graduate from college, so that must mean something. It's a magic number, 21 is, and I of course am not referring to blackjack. You command a different kind of respect when you are 21, even though certain people I work with referred to me on-air yesterday as about to turn 19, 17, and 14 at various times (and I thought growing the goatee would take care of that). I thought it was cool to be 21, like I've made it this far, and for many of us who went through that high school and college experience, surviving to 21 is quite an accomplishment.

So, I am no longer 21, and not happy about it. A friend of mine turned 21 on Wednesday and so he's going through all this now, and sadly I'm looking at that as the far-gone past ("Yeah, I remember when I was 21...") What is the next big thing after 21? At 25, I can rent a car (woo-hoo, I am SO looking forward to THAT!) After this point, we're down to the 0s, as in the big 3-0, the big 4-0, and so on. My birthday officially carries no significance whatsoever, except of course for the fact that occasionally like this year, it's a national holiday because of Veterans Day falling on a weekend. Then again, when Veterans Day has fallen during the week, I've always jokingly referred to it as "the federal observance of my birthday". After all, we don't observe Lincoln's birthday or Martin Luther King's birthday on the right day, so they can give me a different day too, I don't mind.

I'm also starting to consider my birthday to be insignificant due to the fact that nothing ever happens on my birthday, either to me or to the world, and has not at any time in history. Sure, on November 10, 2000, we have this first-time-in-200-plus-years situation with the election and not knowing who our next president will be, but that will not magically resolve itself today in such fashion that November 10, 2000 will become a day that everyone will remember like the day JFK was assassinated or the day man walked on the moon. The Berlin Wall? Happened on the 9th of November. Oh, no, they couldn't wait that extra day to start tearing down that thing; hell, they had to live with it for almost 30 years, one more day wouldn't have killed them. Do you know how depressing it is when you're a kid in school and you have to research the major historical events that happened on your birthday and the best thing you can come up with is the birth of Martin Luther and Leonid Brezhnev dying? Not even a great moment in sports history, like a career milestone or a record or a dramatic ending to a game for all the marbles. So basically, history has about 50 or 60 more opportunities, if I'm lucky, to give me something significant.

Insignificance aside, the day is indeed special to me and those around me. The usual family tradition of relatives singing "Happy Birthday" to me on the phone (and painfully off-key) will continue, good friends will e-mail me, I get taken out dinner perhaps. And this is still MY DAY, regardless of anything happening, so don't think I'm all depressed about the fact that today, I have to turn THIS age on THIS day. I am of the usual mood that nothing can bring me down and nothing will ruin this day, and I'm sure that besides my dramatic bout with influenza last year, there have been some bad things that have happened on my birthday, but the key is I don't remember any of them. Come to think of it, I really don't remember most of the good events either. See what I mean when I say that nothing exciting ever happens on my birthday?

I'm 22. 2-2. However, I'm still young, and still to some extent looked at as pretty damn successful for my age, having done all the stuff I've done. At the same time, I do think that I have reached the age where all the years are going to start to run together. After all, with nothing major in the near future (at least not that I know of), it'll get to the point that a co-worker has gotten to where he can't remember if he met someone important on his 23rd birthday or 24th (or was it maybe 22nd?) Whatever age you happen to be at, though, the best advice for everyone is to enjoy the age you're at; after all, you can't jump ahead to the older age just yet, and you can't go back to the younger age you were (although I wouldn't mind being 21 just a little longer...)