I'm 21 and don't feel too different

 When someone turns 21, they end their day at the bar with their, hopefully, first drink.  It's one of the unwritten rites of passage in human life.  I turned 21 on the 22nd of September.  At first, I felt giddy as I opened up presents from my family: a pair of converse weapons, a frightening t-shirt, and a MTG deck box.  I felt the love from afar as various extended family members and friends called me or texted me.  But my birthday felt slightly virtual.  

My roommates offhandedly wished me a happy birthday and implied taking me out or buying me a cake, both of which didn't happen.  It's not as if I've been flaunting my birthday, but hardly anyone at college even knew the special Tuesday.  I never want people to treat me special, but a little part of me hopes I will be treated special.  I hope that somebody will surprise me with something small but thoughtful.  

I attended class from 8am-2pm, tutored from 2-4, coached basketball from 4-6, and then completed homework from 7-1am.  It was a normal Tuesday, but it was also my 21st birthday.  

It is fitting that I didn't adhere to the social norm on my special day.   I find myself pulled towards opposing social norms more often than not.  It might sound sad to some people, but I am perfectly content to talk to my mom on the phone, participate in class, and help English 100 students on the day that I was born.  

Age is more than just a number.  My age carries with it the memories I've made along the way.  I'm certainly not your typical twenty-one year old, but I would have it no other way.  

I think birthdays are rather funny.  My age ticks up one year but yet I don't feel different.  If I look back at my fifteen-year old self roaming the halls of high school and celebrating by attending the remake of The Magnificent Seven, I can see that I'm very different.  I feel different even from last year.  My muscles ache with age, I continually check my stomach for fat lines, and I'm in the kitchen more than I'm on the basketball court.  Teaching high school students seems less and less like a fantasy.  Coaching basketball proves more difficult then telling players what's right and wrong.  

The days are shorter.  Science may not back me up, but I concur the days are shorter than when I was five and dreamt of playing basketball for the Seattle Supersonics.  Time is more about perception than actual seconds, minutes, and hours.  That's the English major in me: valuing the abstract over the literal, partly because the literal is just a key for the door into the never-ending room of abstraction.

Am I surprised to be a voting adult who has wisps of gray hair in his stylish goatee?  No not really.  I knew it would come some day; I just didn't expect it to happen so quickly.  I'm as prepared as I could be.  I'm prepared to adapt, which is the most useful form of preparation.  

21 is different than 20 which was different than 19 but at the same time it is not.  The day reflects who I am, who i've become, and who I will be.  That gives me more joy than my first drink ever will.

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