Friday, 3 Days After My Birthday

so here i am 3 days into the start of my 28th year…it’s kinda strange being 28, though honestly i don’t feel a day over 27.

a lot of people this year, while offering their birthday wishes and congratulations, made the point of telling me that i am now old. and while i supppose this is a relative term (people have been saying — and i suspect will continue saying — this to me with varying degrees of seriousness since i turned 13), i can’t but help think it is in some ways now true.

granted, i don’t feel “old.” but seeing as how i’m now closer to 30 than 25, i guess it is something to consider. this isn’t to say that 30 is particularly old either, of course, but certainly nobody aged 30 or older is ever mistaken (despite any behavior that might indicate otherwise) for being anything other than an adult.

most of my friends are now either married or engaged or have forthcoming engagements in their near future. some of my married friends have children, and some have children on the way. and while again these are not necessarily indicators of old age (go visit your local inner city or trailer park for proof) it’s hard to argue the fact that the world around me is changing.

when you are a kid and even through your teenage and young adult years there is always a sense that life as an adult is something that won’t exist for many, many years, in a future time and place far from that which you currently inhabit. and that when adulthood arrives the world will have changed so dramatically that you will be able to look around and recognize that the things that once shaped and defined your existence are no longer there, and that the only conclusion to be drawn is that childhood is now long behind you.

last night i was thinking about the concept of aging and of getting old, and of when (if ever) the day will come when i will look in the mirror and know with absolute certainty that this future has arrived. as i looked at myself in the mirror i didn’t feel old, but then i got into bed and turned on the television.

it was there that a news story appeared and the sense this future, that i had once thought would signal my awareness of adulthood, permeated my consciousness.

apparently, the military has just begun using a RAY GUN weapon that shoots a beam that makes people believe that they will catch fire.

wide-eyed with amazement i watched the news segment and thought to myself that if i could go back and tell the younger version of me that i was now living in a world with ray guns, younger me would tell me that this more so than the fact that almost all my friends are married (or soon to be) with kids (or soon to have) is definitive proof that the world i once knew is gone.

i have to admit it shook me for a moment, and a bit of fear crept into my mind. there’s only so long we can put off the responsibilities of adulthood, only so long that decisions can be made without serious concern to the long-term ramifications they might have. perhaps the time has truly now arrived when the finality of life as an adult sinks in.

thankfully, before my mind began to race too fast, the next story appeared…

a man with an acknowledged sexual fetish for female mannequins was sentenced to more than a year in prison after repeatedly breaking into storefront windows.

the man, Ronald Dotson, 39, was sentenced on charges of breaking and entering and being a habitual criminal. he had previously been arrested and convicted 6 times for b&e in the past 13 years (including one instance when police found him in an alley behind a women’s clothing store with three mannequins dressed in lingerie).

and suddenly i was at peace…

i may live in a world with ray guns, and i may in fact be an adult…but this isn’t something to be afraid of (well, maybe the ray guns a bit).

the one thing i think that most people fear as children when it comes to the idea of getting old, is the sense that you will have to lose some part of yourself in order to truly act like a grownup and exist in a grownup world.

but, i think that if i’ve made it to 28 with the sense that a story about a man with a fetish for lady mannequins is something hysterical to be watched and thoroughly enjoyed still intact, then i suppose that i should be okay from here on out (barring worldwide destruction due to ray gun technology) no matter what the future and life as an adult may hold.