It was my brother’s birthday this weekend, he has reached the ripe old age of 26. A number that seems so much older and more mature than the age my brother seems to me. To me he is just my brother, an ageless friend with whom I have a fiercely competitive (we keep a tally score of our games of ‘Speed’. And, yes, we still play ‘Speed’) yet completely supportive relationship (I have written him stories to turn into shorts and he has called production offices to find me a job when I was too scared.) If he’s 26 then that means I’m 23, which can’t be right because I feel like I act exactly as I did when I was 17.
Lately I’ve noticed that I’m having an age identity crisis and I can trace the origin of this crisis back to the 2nd grade when I was reading a book about life… or something. This book had a series of pictures of what you look like and the things you do and achieve at different stages in your life (okay, it was a picture book.) I vividly remember the hand drawn picture of a 20-something year old woman. Her hair rested nicely styled on her shoulders, indicating that the ponytail and pigtails seen in the previous pictures of “teenager” and “child” were long gone. She had a purse that looked like a small briefcase, hanging on one shoulder. She was dressed in a green shirt and long red Bermuda shorts, and the slight heel on her shoes found a classy middle ground between childhood flats and business pumps. Clearly, THIS WAS MATURITY. I regarded this picture fondly and found it not only aspirational but also non-negotiable. This IS what I was going to be like at 20-something. But now being 20-something, I can honestly say there are obvious differences between this “model 20-something year old” and myself.
First of all, I love wearing my hair in a ponytail, especially since I don’t love washing my hair. I bought my first “round brush” a few days ago, a purchase to help me transition into the first stage of womanhood: styled hair. Which reminds me that I need to youtube “how to blow dry hair with round brush” later.
Secondly, I often don’t want to use a purse, and instead choose to juggle my belongings in my hands. This is not helpful when I need my hands to do common chores like pick up things up or open doors. I have to shove my wallet and/or phone into my back pockets or, if wearing gym shorts, slide them in my waistband. Gym shorts. NOT Bermuda shorts, mind you. Very immature.
The difference in shoe preference between the “model 20-something” and myself is not totally by choice. I was cursed with large feet, which leaves me looking for gender neutral shoes. So slight heels are obviously out.
The point I’m trying to make here is that I had an idea, greatly influenced by this picture, of what I would be like at 23. And I am not like that. Sometimes I wonder when I’m going to start identifying with what my elementary school-aged self thought a 20-something year old would be like…
I wonder when I’m going to stop refusing to go out at night without a pregame. I wonder when I’m going to know what information to give if I ever got into a fender bender. A cell phone number seems like too little, and a social security number too much. I wonder when I’m going to accept the fact that people I went to high school with are getting married and having children (probably never. Or when I’m 35.)
But I mostly just want to know when I am going to stop referring to money in Chipotle burritos. I’ll think to myself, do I want to spend 13 dollars on a movie I don’t REALLY want to see? Why, that’s two Chipotle burritos! WITH guacamole. I can only imagine in 20 years explaining that I spent 500 Chipotle burritos on my daughter’s wedding dress. I mean seriously, though… How does money work??
But this is not to say I am jealous of the “model 20-something year old” or that I’ve fallen short. I mean, let’s be real here, I’m much better than that cartoon drawing, stuck on that page and in that book for all eternity. For starters, I’m 3-dimensional.
No comments:
Post a Comment