“So scared of getting older
I’m only good at being young
I play the numbers game to find a way to say that life has just begun
Honestly, we’ll never stop this train”
There’s no year that I’ve skipped having a party. I’m not a brat who demands for a celebration and all that, things just happened that way. More often than not, something special usually comes up. I can still recall some of the most mundane moments that made me the happiest girl alive.
At seventeen, I got my first surprise from my college friends. I got a nautical-inspired bag, a caricature of myself and letters from all eight of them. At eighteen, I celebrated my debut at cheering practice. They roughly grabbed and blindfolded me, then lead me to other pep squad members who wiped icing all over me. It was sweet, literally. It sounds sticky and disgusting but it was special because I never expected it. At nineteen, I got the sweetest birthday video and my favorite Coffee Crumble cake from my college best friends. This was also the year that I had made friends with alcohol. I remember having to drag my 5’6-150 pound best friend all the way to the second floor because was dead drunk.
At twenty, I had a small gathering with my favorite people. Everyone had a little too much to drink and barely slept until Sunday morning. I recall laughing and laughing until everything hurt – it was the best feeling ever. Pretending we weren’t intoxicated by alcohol, I had post-birthday lunch with my family and my best friend on Sunday afternoon.
I guess there will never be a sensible explanation why there’s always too much drinking going on at birthdays.
As much fun as I had during my twentieth celebration, I was terrified to turn twenty. Why? What’s with twenty that nineteen doesn’t have? Answer: the teen in the end.
This additional age didn’t sprout like a mushroom just to make me feel older. The big two-zero is both a gift and an eternal curse. It’s the age of majority- to drive, to drink, to gamble and even get married. I can practically do anything I want.
Should I excite myself for the freedom of arriving into that age? Or should I be haunted by the thought of the responsibility that I must not mess with your own life, else I pay for it, not my parents?
A lot of people say I’m way beyond my years and sometimes, I like to think they are right. But mostly, I believe I’m still a kid. I can play pretend but I can’t escape this trap. Everything is not just in my head anymore, I’m an actual adult.
It’s like saying you want to own a dog when you don’t even like puppies. There’s no going back when you reach the big two-zero. Let’s say I’m matured enough, just for fun, there’s still fear at the back of my head – yes, I’m that anal about potentially making mistakes and ruining my very organized life plan.
See, age isn’t relatively in proportion to maturity. You can be fifteen and smart. You can be fifty and stupid. Twenty is the age when you can do most anything legally. Usually, we fail at that. Just because you’re legally allowed to decide, doesn’t mean you can decide. It’s confusing in more ways than one because the juvenile craves for freedom more than anything. Here is the gift of freedom but then it suddenly turns into responsibility.
There are so many things you want to hold on from your past when you’re dealing with so much at present. But also, there are so many questions are running in your head about the future.
As I quote from one of my favorite movies, Letters to Juliet, “"What" and "If" are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: What if? What if? What if?”
What if I screw up? What if nothing good comes out of me as an adult? What if I never get it right?
Although the future may seem a little unclear to me, I’m hanging. If I lose all hope, I know that the sensible decision is to believe good things will come in its own time.
Honestly, despite all my apprehensive about being older, I’m thankful to have lived two decades.
I am most thankful for my odd-but-lovable family, secondhand bookstores, love for reading, love letters, my two-year old laptop, fast internet, social networking sites, tissue to wipe my nose when I have allergies, friends I can confide to about anything, sanitary napkins, clean public bathrooms, hopping, sale and outlet stores, ice cream, dessert, nice hair, Harry Potter, alternative rock music, my Canon 1100D, irreverent humor, acceptance, Glee, coffee and milk tea, laughing from happy things, sensible conversations, big hugs, travelling, beach, love for writing and more.
That’s another thing about growing up, you learn that the simple things matter more than the grand ones. But, that’s a totally different story.
I will never get tired of looking forward to my birthday. It’s unfailingly a special day. One day when people who have forgotten about me, seem to be delighted about my existence. For one day, I am significant in people’s eyes.
For now, I will repeat to myself 100, 000, 000 times: I am twenty and I am blessed.
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