Translating Twenty-Five
My birthday is kind of a big deal. I’m obnoxious about it, really.
When I was four, my parents made the mistake of bringing an almost-five-year-old to the happiest place on earth: Disney World. I spent the entire trip asking about my birthday party that would take place back in Louisiana at the end of the week. I was looking forward to homemade chocolate cake and the Happy Birthday song (which I now hate) and my nanny.* I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, shut up about it.
And now I’m 25.
Twenty years later, I still felt that same kind of excitement surrounding my birthday. Well, that and a little bit of nausea.
When I confessed my slight-maybe-I’m-a-little-nervous-about-25 fear to my friends (who are all older than I am), they rolled their eyes.
“Yeah…that’s a big one,” they said, all bless-her-heart-like.
Because here’s an obvious life secret: any age older than your own seems old, and any age younger than yours seems adorable or naive.
Fair enough, I thought, but still. Twenty-five. That’s got to mean something, right?
Lafayette, Louisiana
I wasn’t anxious about my twenty-fifth birthday so much as I was curious about it at first. What’s the big deal? I’ve been mistakenly saying I was 25 since I turned 24, so I’ve kind of already done this. And, yes. It is the same thing.
But over the last year, life changed, somewhat rapidly for me. It was different. Or, at least different enough for me to take notice. For me to wonder about this person I’ve become. Am becoming. Hope to become in the near future.
Like any good writer (or girl who calls herself a good writer), I decided to draft an essay about this uncertainty. A really good essay I decided. I’ll say a bunch of profound stuff and title it something clever like, “Turning Twenty-Five.”
Yeah. Adorable, right? Apparently, that’s been done. By every single person who has ever turned twenty-five in the entire history of the world. Even non-writers because “suddenly they’re twenty-five and have this new writer calling.”
Google it, and tell me I’m lying.
But still, I was committed to the idea. (Stubbornness and commitment look similar on me.) I mixed it up a bit. I decided I wouldn’t say anything profound (much easier), I would simply take a look at December 12 every year from 1988 to 2013 and do something experimental with the events that happened juxtaposed to my own birthdays. (The Clapham Junction rail crash killed 35 people on the day of my birth, and the Russian Federation gained its independence from the USSR when I turned three.).
Interesting, right? No. This is only interesting to me (and barely).
So, what then?
The night before my twenty-fifth birthday, I couldn’t sleep. This isn’t that unusual, but something about it felt odd. It wasn’t my normal insomnia. I’d gone out with friends to celebrate the end of the semester that night and asked the bartender to make me something sweet without vodka. He said he couldn’t do that. I said “okay, but I don’t want to taste the vodka.” And he smiled and said, “oh you won’t taste it.” My friends advised me not to drink that drink, but I’d paid for it, and so I did, and now I thought maybe this awakeness had something to do with that poor choice. But it didn’t.
This feeling felt more like the excitement before the first day of school or the anxiety of the morning before a big test: I felt unprepared.
I knew nothing about being twenty-five. I should have actually read those googled essays! I wasn’t ready for this. I’d only just figured out twenty-four (and barely).
And there it was: I don’t have to know how to be twenty-five on day one. I didn’t know how to dance on the first day of class, and I certainly wasn’t confident about writing when I started graduate school. And if we’re being honest, I still can’t figure out how to work my dishwasher so that it properly cleans my dishes.
And so, with the help of my wiser friends, I came up with a long list of plans for the next year: get a tattoo (sorry Mom and Dad); buy a plane ticket and go somewhere—anywhere—that same day; rent a convertible (because I can!); learn a skill (admittedly vague and achievable), speak French fluently again (or for the first time); and become an aunt.
I’ve always been excited about my birthday because it’s an ending and a beginning all at once. Bittersweet. It’s the same reason that I like New Year’s Eve and, of course, “Closing Time” by Semisonic.
But this year will be different. This year, I will not look forward to my twenty-sixth birthday. I will not focus on the chocolate cake at the end of the week and miss the happiest place right in front of me. And I’m not going to say I’m twenty-six before I am.
I’m going to own twenty-five and any quarter-of-life crisis I stumble upon in the process. Or, in the very least, I plan on figuring out what all the fuss is about.
* In the south, at least in southern Louisiana, the term “Nanny” refers to one’s Godmother. And no, it’s not like a “fairy Godmother” although mine often felt like one, because she’s the greatest. It’s a Catholic thing.
***Writer’s Note***
This was originally posted in December 2013. You can read about all the ways I’m translating twenty-five with day-to-day discoveries at my official blog, http://michellejunot.com/currentblogs/.
