Senior English major
Today is my mom’s 50th birthday. Fifty — a nice, round number we reach when we’re proverbially “over the hill.”
Her big birthday got me thinking about the nature of growing older and how we celebrate age. I’ve come to this conclusion: “Over the hill” doesn’t happen when you’re 50, but rather 21, the last birthday when you can still truly feel young.
I turned 21 last year. After much anticipation and years of waiting to go horizontal, I woke up as a 21-year-old on Dec. 31, 2011 with mixed feelings. My heart was ready to drink and celebrate like the college kid I still am today, (New Year’s Eve didn’t hurt either) but my brain started second-guessing it all. “I’m old,” was the only thought I seemed to come up with.
Twenty-one is a tiny, yet significant number. It marks the end of adolescence and the beginning of true adulthood. It’s the end of the journey usually started in high school — scheming to get beer and a location for the weekend’s party — and continued into the “fake ID and sneaking into bars” era of early college.
Gone are the days when doing wrong out of sheer juvenile delinquency was the best way to feel right.
The problem with turning 21 is its central importance in today’s social scene. It’s the only milestone birthday that really matters to us, and therein lies the rub, because every birthday after it implies just a bit more responsibility and a bit less childhood. Every subsequent birthday, frankly, isn’t fun. Twenty-two might as well be 25, and shouldn’t you be married with a steady job by 25? If not 25, then surely by 30, right? You’ll have kids and a house by 35 or 40 or so, the kids will be off to college around your 50th, and then they’ll start having kids when you pass 60. You get the idea.
I don’t write this to mourn the celebration of the 21st. For most people, it’s a sacred day. But to any of you about to turn 21, the feeling in the pit of your stomach — the unshakable feeling you’re actually getting older — that’s very real, and it’s a sign of things to come.
As we grow older, we start to adopt more responsibility. And as we become more responsible, we have to become more selfless. The more I think about my 21st birthday, the luckier I feel being born on New Year’s Eve. Sharing my party with the New Year meant I didn’t have to be the only one celebrating — it wasn’t only about me. Sharing my 21st with an international celebration was accidentally my first act of selflessness in adulthood.
I went into my 21st birthday thinking only about myself, focused entirely on getting drunk or laid or both. Now, I realize how stupid that impulse was. Twenty-first birthdays are meant to be celebrated vicariously through our friends. They’re meant to be shared and enjoyed until everyone has had one.
If we accept that turning 21 marks the end of thinking only about ourselves, then being “over the hill” doesn’t have to be all that bad. If the responsibilities of old age start to get you down, you can always just pour yourself a drink.
Drew Farrell is a senior English major. He can be reached at farrell@umdbk.com.
