22.
The year after the last fun birthday. I guess I'd still have something to look forward to if I had an gnawing aspiration to rent a car, but unfortunately that one didn't make my bucket list. So celebrating my 21st birthday last year was the final hurdle of exciting, coveted birthdays.
I've felt especially introspective in my old age lately. I keep thinking about how dissatisfied we are with the constant changing of what drives us.
You dream of 16 and driving. You dream of 18 and freedom. You dream of 21 and doing the same thing you've been doing since age 18, but legally.
Then comes 22. For me, having been out of college for a few years, I haven't experienced many big life changes as of late. A few different living situations. An exotic new Kia Forte.
The small detail of my recent engagement.
(pause for crowd reaction)
It's such a hard thing to put in to words when your life story is being written before your eyes. Once upon a time I had dreams, an outline to the life I hoped to one day stand in the middle of. Now, I look around and slowly, the black and white stencils in my mind have become beautiful and vibrant memories of the life I'm creating.
The degree I once dreamed of now sits collecting dust in my closet. The man I once prayed for sits at the other end of the couch. The diamond I used to fantasize about now glitters on my left hand, where it has no right to be so dang beautiful.
Where there was once only a daydream, now there is a memory. With my engagement fresh on my mind (and my Instagram feed, as everyone who follows me now wishes I'd shut up about it) I can't help but sink into a pit of nostalgia.
Every moment that we dream of will one day be etched into our minds as a distant memory. The first kiss that my friends and I giggled and guessed about when we were supposed to be sleeping finally came. My driver's test that I yearned for every night for years blew by. My high school graduation went by in a flash.
My first car is some other 16 year old's prized possession. My prom dresses haven't seen the outside of their garment bag in years. My first apartment now only exists in pictures.
I never have to wonder what it feels like to look down and see the love of my life down on one knee. I don't have to look at Pinterest to see engagement rings. I don't have to wonder about the eyes I'll look into when I wake up in the morning, thirty years from now.
I can see them all right in front of me. The most beautiful mosaic of memories, forever burned into my memory like the shooting star only a few people are lucky enough to see.
I vow to never take for granted the life that is in front of me, the reality that only existed in daydreams even a few weeks before. But then, haven't I sworn that before?
There was a time where the mere thought of driving on my own seemed like the pinnacle of life and freedom. I pushed that 2002 Acura to its' limits. Then that quickly dulled, and I couldn't move out fast enough. Two weeks after graduation and I was sleeping under my own roof. I got accustomed to that, and needed my diploma. I studied my life and time away until it all paid off and I was a college graduate. As it turns out, even that can be short lived.
Every milestone that I have begged for and bargained with the universe to just please let me have, I've let slip to the back of my mind and out of my head entirely. The things I used to once fall asleep wishing and praying for became my reality, then faded to my past.
I vow to never take for granted the life that is in front of me again.
I never want to take for granted the fact that I can drive myself to Andy's at 11pm and don't have to ask permission. There was a day I would have sold my soul for that. (I never said I wasn't dramatic)
I refuse to complain about the job I studied so hard to get, even when it leaves me with tired, strained eyes and a brain that refuses to solve any more problems.
I never want to stop feeling the pure elation I felt seeing my engagement ring for the first time. I want to remember the feeling of importance, of wearing something so carefully chosen for me and so deeply symbolic.
I won't allow myself to take for granted how fleeting life is. My excitement is fickle and my gratefulness is short lived. I can only covet one thing for as long as it takes me to dream up the next. That's what I'm leaving behind this year.
22 may seem uneventful, but there was a time I would have given anything to jump to where I am now. Most likely, there will come a time where I'd give anything to come back to this moment. In my quiet apartment, without a care in the world besides catching my flight on Thursday.
All the memories of 21, thank you for being so messy, beautiful, painful, colorful, lovely.
All of the daydreams of my 22nd year, I can't wait to see you come to life.