So, technically, I'm no longer 21.
27 and a day, actually, if you're anal about things like "facts" and "truth".
It's just that people always say there's a difference between your actual age and your mental age. Certainly, there is no changing the gradual and inevitable deterioration of your once youthful body. It's a harsh, bitchy little fact of life.
The way you think, however, is totally up to you.
I've met 40-year-old men who still cling to their mothers (true story, please never ask) and eight-year-olds who know more than I do.
Truth.
So I may have marked my 27th year with chocolate cake and pear-flavored vodka (choose this only if you like gargling car freshener), but I say mentally, I'm pretty much stuck at 21.
It's a personal choice.
I want to stay 21 in my mind.
Not 16. 16 years old is when you think you know everything and anything, like life is some sort of easy shit you can conquer in a snap. Plus, at 16, I was constantly angry (thanks Nirvana! thanks Jessica Zafra!), as if the world owed me a frigging explanation for everything. Also, zits.
Not 20. I graduated from college at 20 (or 19 and a few months, again for the Freudian butt-fixated). At that time I honestly, honestly thought that I could take the world by storm. Ah, youthful naivete. How pitiful you are. I was at the top of my game, and I really believed that my brains could somehow translate into success in the workplace. It couldn't.
20 is when you realize that life is an actual, real bitch.
It's no longer just a catchphrase. Everything you learned in school -- all those frigging trinomials and the capital of Burkina Faso -- is pointless.
Which is why I choose to stay 21.
21 is when your initial shock over the realities of life as an "adult" finally subside and you come to terms with the bullshit that is the rest of your life. This is what the world is like.
Basically, the world hates you and you just learn to deal with it.
At 21, you realize that you know nothing, and that it's not too late to start learning. Life is what it is, you have responsibilities to shoulder, and there's no point bitching and whining.
You're officially an adult at 21, but you know better than that.
21 is when you finally have your life in your hands, all your cards laid out before you, all your weaknesses paraded out in the open -- and you feel great.
Your future is uncertain, you're not doing what you thought you'd be doing after graduation, things and people disappoint, but it's fine. The blinders are off, you finally know that you don't really know anything.
And you come out guns blazing, in absolute fighting form, because for the first time in your life: you're actually ready.
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