Significant years
May. 9th, 2005 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzI've always hated the significant years. When I turned ten, my brother said I wasn't a teenager until I was eleven, just to spite me. After I finally turned eleven, I could not wait until I was sixteen, when I'd finally really be allowed to do something (ride a moped or scooter). Around the same time I turned sixteen, I noticed that it wasn't all that, to finally be allowed something. Mostly, it just create a lot of questions. Whether or not I would go for the theory certificate you need to legally drive a scooter or moped. It got worse after I turned 18 (legal age to drive). Everyone was very excited about me being an adult, and they kept on asking questions on whether or not I'd go for my driver's license. When I'd go. How far I was. Whether I had my theory certificate for the car yet. When my practical exam was. Whether I made it (I didn't). When I'd retry. How many lessons I would take. Honestly, you think people were trying to relive their eightteenth year through me, and it annoyed the hell out of me.
So when I finally started on my driver's license after my nineteenth birthday and finally passing my highschool exams, the questions drove me nuts. One friend of the family called a day early to ask whether I had made it. I had to tell her to stop calling because I already was nervous enough. And then I failed the practical exam. Honestly, pedestrians back then just made to cross, then decided they wouldn't, and just as you were ready to start driving again they decided to go anyway, and you failed the exam. The horror....
The second test I had was even worse. I thought I had passed for real, there was a lot of good driving. Turned out I failed on one car coming from the right. He wasn't driving to fast and I decided to show some initiative and not wait for him even though he had the right of way. I could have and would have pulled it off with enough space for the other car, but the examinator decided I couldn't and wouldn't make it and hit the brakes.
I still can't drive a car (legally) to this day.
After that second exam a few years of blissful ignorance followed. I turned twenty (not very special) and the marvellous 21. I have no idea why everybody seems to think 21 is that special, because it isn't at all special. I mainly got concerned questions about my study and then on what I would do with my life now that I quit college.
It's quite strange to realize when you are 22 (as I am now for only a few more days), that up until that day you considered yourself to still be a teenager. After all, 19 is still 'being in your teens' and twenty is just a step away from nineteen, so that doesn't really count. And because twenty-one sounds really spiffy you don't really think about it. But now that I am almost twenty-three, I realize it's quite impossible to think of myself as a teenager. My teen years are really behind me now, and there's no denying it, really. I've passed beyond the significant years. Sixteen! Eightteen! Twenty-one! They're past. The next significant year I will hit is thirty! And then there's going to be another fifty years ahead of me with some luck.
My gods, I'm still young.
The funny bit is that most 23 year olds I see walking around in the city and on the streets, they think they're all that. Hell, even all 18 year olds I see act like that. But I realize that I've just started in the corporate games, and I've got a lot to learn (all six million questions you need answered by some person or other when you start a business are a good way of knowing you're not all that), and I've got a lot of years to learn it in.
My mother's quite superstitious and calls herself a witch, while she is mostly christian with some common sense thrown in. My mother's cool. Eleven is supposed to be the number of the fool, my mother taught me. Twenty-two is two times eleven, twice the fool. I'm now moving on to a prime number.
Thursdaynight I hope to take my parents out to dinner (depending on the money situation), and I'll bake a cake (a bunnnnnnnnnn-t *grin*). Party for the friends is not until a later to be defined date.
Now let's get used to the idea that my crazy teen years are finally behind me, and I need to make the next 10 years even more crazy...
So when I finally started on my driver's license after my nineteenth birthday and finally passing my highschool exams, the questions drove me nuts. One friend of the family called a day early to ask whether I had made it. I had to tell her to stop calling because I already was nervous enough. And then I failed the practical exam. Honestly, pedestrians back then just made to cross, then decided they wouldn't, and just as you were ready to start driving again they decided to go anyway, and you failed the exam. The horror....
The second test I had was even worse. I thought I had passed for real, there was a lot of good driving. Turned out I failed on one car coming from the right. He wasn't driving to fast and I decided to show some initiative and not wait for him even though he had the right of way. I could have and would have pulled it off with enough space for the other car, but the examinator decided I couldn't and wouldn't make it and hit the brakes.
I still can't drive a car (legally) to this day.
After that second exam a few years of blissful ignorance followed. I turned twenty (not very special) and the marvellous 21. I have no idea why everybody seems to think 21 is that special, because it isn't at all special. I mainly got concerned questions about my study and then on what I would do with my life now that I quit college.
It's quite strange to realize when you are 22 (as I am now for only a few more days), that up until that day you considered yourself to still be a teenager. After all, 19 is still 'being in your teens' and twenty is just a step away from nineteen, so that doesn't really count. And because twenty-one sounds really spiffy you don't really think about it. But now that I am almost twenty-three, I realize it's quite impossible to think of myself as a teenager. My teen years are really behind me now, and there's no denying it, really. I've passed beyond the significant years. Sixteen! Eightteen! Twenty-one! They're past. The next significant year I will hit is thirty! And then there's going to be another fifty years ahead of me with some luck.
My gods, I'm still young.
The funny bit is that most 23 year olds I see walking around in the city and on the streets, they think they're all that. Hell, even all 18 year olds I see act like that. But I realize that I've just started in the corporate games, and I've got a lot to learn (all six million questions you need answered by some person or other when you start a business are a good way of knowing you're not all that), and I've got a lot of years to learn it in.
My mother's quite superstitious and calls herself a witch, while she is mostly christian with some common sense thrown in. My mother's cool. Eleven is supposed to be the number of the fool, my mother taught me. Twenty-two is two times eleven, twice the fool. I'm now moving on to a prime number.
Thursdaynight I hope to take my parents out to dinner (depending on the money situation), and I'll bake a cake (a bunnnnnnnnnn-t *grin*). Party for the friends is not until a later to be defined date.
Now let's get used to the idea that my crazy teen years are finally behind me, and I need to make the next 10 years even more crazy...
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-09 12:35 pm (UTC)I was a common boring everyday schoolboy who'd never been kissed on my sixteenth birthday, but I was sure that would all soon change.
A year later, I celebrated my seventeenth birthday, and I realized I was still a common boring everyday schoolboy who'd never been kissed. I thought my life was over. I thought: if nothing happens when you are sixteen, nothing will ever happen. I thought I was never going to be involved in anything romantic or adventurous.
A few months later, my first romance, and my first kissing, and my first wild andventures would start. That is when I learned not to worry about significant ages anymore.
Life happens when you least expect it. It does not happed at significant ages.
By the way, I lost my virginity at 22, (so you are already ahead of me) and I got my driver's license at 33 (so you can still get ahead of me if you want to)
And a (belated) happy birthday to you!
no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 07:32 pm (UTC)That's one of the first things I notice about a number <.<
You can still pretend you're 16! ^.^