What's so special about turning 22 years old? The answer—and I say this with all due respect to all of my friends and family members who've spent the last week sending me cards and packages and showering me with birthday salutations—is absolutely nothing. In fact, I would argue 22 is the most meaningless of all the birthdays, if for no other reason, because it comes on the heels of an unprecedented set of landmark birthdays.
Think about it. For about the last 10 years, each birthday meant opening a new milestone in the quest for adulthood. For me, it started at age 12 when the countdown to parent-note-free access to PG-13 movies loomed on the horizon. It may seem trivial now, but you have to remember those days of Jim Carey, Chris Farley and Adam Sandler. Missing one of their movies was tantamount to social suicide.
Some parents didn't care if their kids saw PG-13 movies before they were 13. They strode through the hallways and yelled things like ""O'Doyle rules!"" and used their butts to communicate A la Ace Ventura. Naturally, these were the cool kids.
But my mom always hesitated to sign the PG-13 admittance note. Occasionally she'd hear a positive review on NPR and would show some leniency. But more often than not, the great actors of the day received terrible reviews, which made life even more difficult. When I turned 13 though, the cinema doors flew open and I set about filling my brain with schlock.
Of course, the movie theater was within walking distance from my house, which rendered it useless to me when I turned 16 and got my drivers license. Armed with a terrible selection of compact discs, a Walkman that didn't work in the winter and a cassette adapter, I put a serious hurt on the main drags and thoroughfares of southwestern Wisconsin.
By the time driving around started to lose a bit of its luster, 18 brought the scandalous temptation of cigarettes, porn and gambling. I remember having mixed feelings about these newly available vices. Unfortunately for me, the local gaming establishment bumped its age requirement up to 21 just before I turned 18 and severely limited my legal gambling options.
I didn't smoke, so aside from the occasional purchase for a desperate underage friend, access to cigarettes didn't change life too much either. And since high school classmates staffed most of the convenience stores in town, buying porn was simply out of the question. Even though I didn't really capitalize on these opportunities, knowing I could make three destructive, but legal, decisions was terribly empowering.
That sense of empowerment only grew last year when I turned 21. Not because I'd waited 'till then to have a drink of alcohol, but because it offered a sort of peace of mind. Now, I was officially an adult. I'd climbed to the top of the mountain and year 21 was 12 months of reflecting on how far I'd come.
Now, those 12 months are over. Some people will argue I'm not at the top yet and that there's still a lot to accomplish. But I'm not talking about accomplishments. Turning 21 wasn't an accomplishment. It was a milestone. What age-related milestones do I have left? I can hardly look forward to the day when I'll be able to rent a car without hassle or the age when jeans just don't look right on me any more.
What I'd really like to do is fast-track it to the next significant stop on the timeline. Unfortunately, I doubt my birthday card money haul will be enough to pay for my retirement.
