the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
1.26.2007
Fudge.
Today's my 22nd birthday.
:(
Edit on 01/29/07: My stomach wouldn't stop flip-flopping in the few days before my birthday. I was getting over a prolonged illness this past month, but I was filled with this weird nagging anxiety which kept me at home from work, sleeping all day, and worrying. I felt like at 22, I was rapidly approaching some kind of awful point in my life where I had no longer had anything to look forward to.
21 was the "I no longer have to rely on a fake ID (given to me by Meagan, who found it on the streets of Philly from what I understand), which consists of a New York driver's license belonging to a certain 'Carla Giglio' whose D.O.B. would render me about 32 years old and whose photo would render me vaguely Hispanic or Italian" legal drinking age. This was also the age that I finally found myself buying my own drinks at bars. I guess once you are of legal age, and people no longer get to brag/complain: "Oh my god, I could go to jail for this!" it's no longer fun for people to buy you drinks. Damn it.
20 was the "I'm no longer a teenager so I'm totally mature, but am young enough to call myself an 'old soul' while making faces to show how bitter I am, drinking scotch at the bar with old, people and saying the F-word all the time" year. This was met with limited success.
19 was the "I guess I can still call myself a 'barely-legal Asian schoolgirl' and get away with wearing plaid miniskirts, oh who am I kidding, I'm a living caricature of myself" age.
18 was the "I am legal now! But still completely filled with teenage angst" age. Probably my most blissfully ignorant year. Man, I was really stupid.
At 22, I find myself at a point where I no longer find the urge to impress the wrong people for the wrong reasons to be quite as compelling. After several years of not doing what was best for me, after experiencing a lot of eye-opening situations, after filling my bookshelf with more than a few embarrassingly titled and apparently poorly concealed self-help books on how to not be crazy, I'm finally trying to do what will make me happy.
"22 feels... different." "Better?" "... Uh huh."
I guess I'm realizing that at 22, it's not so much that there's a lack of milestones to look foward to. It's more that I have less first-experiences to stumble over, to skin my knees over, to bleed over. I feel kind of like a hobo with a bindle (ahem: a rag tied at the end of a stick) filled with new insights, walking along the train tracks and into a hopeful sunset. And, you know, all of that hippie bullshit.
I just, I just really want to do it right this time.
[Peek-a-Foo]