"How old are you?" ... "57"...
"How old are you?"... "18"...
As we grow older, we may have up to 105 different answers to the same question... "how old are you?" It's funny, because I don't think this question ever really hit me the way it has in the past 2 months. I know, I'm only 26, it's silly that I'm thinking that this question "hit me" a certain way, but it has begun to hit me. Maybe it's the recent realization of my mortality, or the ticking of my stupid biological clock, or the fact that 75% of my friends are married/engaged/have children/are pregnant, maybe it's because I have a billion things to accomplish and haven't accomplished them... I can't tell you why exactly, but somewhere along the way, I've started to take offense to the question. Yes it sounds silly, but it's the truth, so bear with me.
Thursday night I was in a bar in State College, PA with a dear friend and was surrounded by 21 and 22 year olds, and I felt old. They were all there in their overwhelming colognes, perfumes, tight shirts and push-up bras, polo shirts and ripped jeans, painted on make-up and bleached hair, hair gel and loan money... drinking shots of grape vodka and bud light... and I was there in a flannel and a santa hat drinking a jack and coke out of a mason jar.
This is not to say that at 21 I wouldn't have been wearing or drinking the exact same things... because I likely would have. Nor is it to say that I would've been any less overwhelmed by the primal mating rituals going on in that bar... and every bar for that matter, but this was different. This was a feeling of loss and inadequacy paired with a deep sense of loneliness and emptiness. I do not want to be 21 again. Not even a little bit. I do not want to be the person that I was at 21, because she was a selfish, needy (albeit, still fun) royal pain in the ass. But for some reason, that girl didn't understand that time was passing, and she didn't hold onto, or value things the way she should have... and for that, I would like to (even if just for a moment) go back in time and beat the living hell out of her. Not that a beating would change anything (violence is not the answer), but just sometimes I want to turn back time long enough to tell people that I love them; to take hateful words back; to not take that drink;to not kiss that boy (or to kiss that boy); to not act that way; to hold back tears (or to let them out); to say what I mean and mean what I say... and I'm sure that somewhere in the back of our minds, all of us do. The sad part is just that the years are passing and passing and passing and I can't hold onto them, I can't make them slow down, and I'm just running along side them hoping they don't beat me to the finish. But they will... eventually.
Oh how the years go by,
Oh how the love brings tears to my eyes,
All through the changes the soul never dies,
we fight... we laugh... we cry...
Basically, all I'm trying to say is "wow... time flies" "seize the day", and about 10 million other cliches, and am doing a rather poor job of saying it. Anyway, I just hope that when the years do beat me to the finish, that I've taken the time to say "Hey, I love you" to those that I do, to kiss that boy (or not kiss that boy), to laugh at that joke, to laugh at that mistake, and to be able to say... "wow... that was awesome."
