I love birthdays. Some people don't like to make a big deal about them, but I love that feeling of "I am special" that the big day brings. When I was still at home, my birthday fun began when my parents snuck into my room in the middle of the night and left my presents at the foot of the bed. I'd wake up on my birthday morning, have a lovely little unwrapping session, then eat a special birthday breakfast of my choosing -- usually French toast with candles stuck on top.
Of course, it's not a birthday without a little celebration of some sort. And what's the fun of having just another party when you can have a theme party? When I turned six, my closest grade school chums came over for my Lucky Sixes Dominos party where we happily constructed our own domino place mats out of construction paper. Six years later, I invented the Poetry and Psychic birthday party. I do not remember how I thought those two themes were connected, but my guests came all in black and ready to recite their favorite poems. After the Beat portion of the evening, we played a bunch of "psychic games" that I found in YM. For my 14th, my parents allowed my friends and I to write all over the dining room walls of my new house, but only because the walls were getting painted a few days later. I transformed that same dining room in ninth grade into a speakeasy and hosted a murder mystery party set in the 1920s. I assigned myself the best character, "Slinky" -- the madam of a house of ill repute. A lounge lizard party was the idea behind my 18th birthday -- my friends sipped strawberry daiquiri mocktails and ate pigs-in-a-blanket as Dean Martin crooned in the background. I also served vegetarian chicken fingers, which were quite a hit until I revealed that they weren't really chicken. The tofu chocolate pudding that I served at my last year's birthday party was accepted much better.
Today I am 21.
I don't know that I look 21.
I don't know that I feel 21.
I watched the movie "Big" over vacation (is this how 21-year-olds spend their Saturday nights?) and suddenly felt a connection with the Tom Hanks character, Josh, who magically turns from a 13-year-old boy into a 30-year-old man overnight. At the end of the movie, he realizes he's not ready to be an adult yet, and so he turns back into a boy. I don't really have that option. I'm turning 21, then 22, then 23, etc., whether I like it or not.
So far, the legal significances of my birthdays have not bowled me over. I didn't get around to getting my driver's permit until six months after my 16th birthday. It was another year and a half before I got my license. When I turned 18, I considered buying a pack of cigarettes just because I could (even though I don't smoke). Then I decided I would feel guilty giving money to a cancer-causing industry. And buying pornography didn't interest me either. Turning 18 did mean that I could vote -- but the absentee ballots I mail in from college aren't quite as dramatic as real voting booths. The privilege of imbibing that comes with turning 21 promises to be more exciting, even if Main Street isn't packed with bars in which to celebrate.
So what comes next? The quarter-of-century-old 25 birthday, then the over-the-hill birthday. The rest seem to blend together. Is turning 33 any different from turning 34? I can't say for sure until I get there, but 21 is momentous.
Which is why I feel I should do something momentous to mark this day. Suggestions, anyone? A tattoo would be a good solution, but I'm not ready for that kind of permanence. And I don't want another hole in my ear, or anywhere else for that matter.
So maybe I'll just turn 21 quietly, trying not think about the strand of gray hair I found the other day (unless it was the weird lighting in the bathroom) or the fact that I'm not a kid anymore (although I still might act like one).
Am I really an adult?
Do I want to be an adult?
Who knows? All I know is it's my birthday.
