On being 22

 

Today I walked away from the sea.  Today I walked up my street past houses I’ve never seen, running my fingertips along fences I’ve never touched.  I’ll be living in San Diego for the next couple of weeks in a part of town that smells of ocean salt and smoke.  My boyfriend of 3 ½ years lives here and every month I drive the 350+ miles to the edge of the coast to see him for a weekend and once a month he drives to the middle of the desert to see me.  I made the rash decision to live here again this summer and leave behind work and possible internships to enjoy time at the sand and my boyfriend’s skin.  But today I am in a contemplative mood. As I walked down the street today past those houses I’ve never seen, running my fingertips along those fences I’ve never touched I thought of what it meant to be 22 and living a life I could have never expected.
 

I suppose that what’s most striking about this age thus far is how nonchalant it crept up and has lingered into a state of being.  For every birthday since I was…forever I’ve either been tremendously excited (13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21) or annoyed (14, 15, 19), but this is the first year I’ve been oddly neutral.  

What 22 means to me as a concept

I think of 20, 21, and 22 as the “baby twenties”, as in, old enough to cool and trendy but young enough to still get away with shit.  At 23, I don’t know, I just see it as a number where one should have at least some idea of what they want to do or, at the bare minimum, have the balls to be who are even if they don’t have a clue yet.  A 23 year-old is someone is a little life on their bones and
someone who deserves more respect though they should be held with more accountability then the “baby twenties”.  A 22 year-old on the other hand can still have some leeway in acting like a kid.  At least to me. 

What I expected at 22 and what I did not

Growing up I always thought of 22 as a watershed year for me.  I figured that I would be graduating at this age and be on my way to become a doctor or anthropologist or writer or editor or something, and I figured that I’d have a cute car and a cute boyfriend, or rather, cute boyfriends whom my best friends and I would discuss and dismiss together as we drank wine and coffee ice cream. I was expecting poetry slams and professor lectures to fulfill the weekdays and a stamped passport for my vacations since I’d be speaking a few different languages at this point. 

The thing is, for the most part I am who I thought I’d be.  The best friends, a wonderfully handsome and sexy Charming Fellow for a boyfriend, the cute car, poetry slams, professor lectures, and while I like neither wine nor coffee ice cream I’m a little in love with vanilla lattes and mild jello shots.  I don’t have a stamp in my passport yet though I’ve seen absolutely beautiful sites in Puerto Vallarta, New York, Hawaii, Oregon, Virginia, all of California, Texas, and gotta love Vegas.

But that whole graduation future thing?  I’m nowhere near where I thought I would be at 22.  I decided to graduate a year later just because my resume is so slim.  I know I want to write.  I know I want to edit.  But I haven’t started DOING it yet.  And so at 22 I have the culture and love and clothes but that “growing up” part of knowing where I’m going once I get that diploma is still forming.      

What a 22 feels like

With some ages there are clear indicators of age, such as finally being able to order a drink at 21 or buy a lotto ticket at 18 or obtain a drivers license at 16 or maybe it’s just a mood of what your number feels like.  Graduation is the traditional indicator of 22 but since that’s not going to happen for me there are more subtle clues for my age,  like when I decide to wear a little black dress on a weekday just for fun, or how I think that biscottis and brie cheese are snack foods, or how I’m warming up the concept of marriage now that I understand what commitment feels like, or how I’m not afraid to make reservations or ask questions, or how I play hip-hop obnoxiously loud because I fucking can, or when I make judgment calls between buying this thing or that thing because I know how hard it is to make a dollar and harder yet to save a dollar.  And I think that feeling 22 is what pride feels like.  Pride in your appearance, pride for your apartment, pride your reputation--even if it’s a crazy reputation, you still want to maintain that crazy reputation, and your “titles” start to matter a little more like Job Title or College Graduate or Trendy Girl or Artist Girl or what have you just as long as you’re known just a tinsy bit.   And so twenty-two feels pretty good.  Still a little unsure.  Still a little confused.  But finally getting to place of not just confidence but working towards those things to back up the hype.      

22, the series

There are many things I know now at 22 and a many then I don’t.  I have advice and questions and cd playlists.  And so I’m starting a series on my blog called the The 22 Series to feature lists of 22 things of whatever comes to mind.  Hope you like it and stay tuned.  Much love and thanks! =)