To one-up Hunter S. Thompson, I considered coke for my 19th birthday and writing about the experience. The night could start like it normally does with me slipping into my tight leather jeans and doing my black eyeliner. Maybe snort the coke off something punk rock, like an album by the Sex Pistols or Taylor Swift, and then hit the town. The streetlights illuminate the stage as I dance my way through the night. Meaningful life questions emerge as I start to truly contemplate what sound does the fox make? By the end of a night of failed pick-up lines and honest opinions, I have a deeper understanding of Hobbes and how my state of nature is solitary and poor, my attempts nasty and brutish, and my manhood all too short. These girls are just artificial constructs.
I decide against the coke and instead grab a Pepsi from my fridge.
I’ve been told I’m an adult now but I don’t feel it. Turning 19 means I can buy beer, but it doesn’t mean I can afford beer. It’s like I’ve arrived at the party only to find the drinks flat and the people uninteresting. Isn’t being an adult supposed to be life changing?
Like kids filling condoms with water, the age of adulthood is subject to inflation.
Ten once seemed like a pretty good age to work on something more than a tan. In the American Civil War, 13-year-old punk kids were sneaking off to combat, perhaps thinking a gig as a drummer boy might make them the next Keith Moon.
You can marry at 16 (but has anyone who’s ever seen 16 and Pregnant really think they’re adults?); my parents could drink legally at 18.
Now, according to child psychologists, 25 is the new 19 (talk about expanding empires). That’s right, our adolescent brains aren’t fully developed till then. What? We aren’t old enough to understand the full depth of The Aristocrats joke?
But it fits the narrative of my elders – you know the one where we’re all entitled and soft and afraid to give up our innocence, if not our virginity. Apparently the strap is good for us; soon it’ll be the Spanish Influenza. Besides, Romeo and Juliet were 13 when they lost their innocence and look what happened to them – an over-the-top Baz Luhrmann film.
My parents tell me my generation is doomed because we expect everything to be handed to us, but the minute I hand them my phone, they can’t even find the Instagram icon. And they somehow wipe my contacts.
And then there’s all that paradise lost stuff:
1. No longer can I take my sister to the liquor store to buy me wine and only get around to telling her in the parking lot that I forgot my wallet at home.
2. I no longer need a fake ID that says “McLovin.”
3. At extended-family events, I will now be expected to sit at the adult table and discuss the Royal Wedding and fiscal cliffs, instead of at the kid’s table where we talk about interesting things like the Red Wedding and Kendrick’s new riff.
4. I’ll have to come to terms with Matthew McConaughey’s character in Dazed and Confused no longer being the creepy older guy – now, he’s the creepy guy my age. His words have already started to ring true: “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older and they stay the same age.”
I’m beginning to understand why Peter Pan left for Neverland. At this rate for Pete’s sake (yes, I mean you Pan), I’m soon going to be ranting to young people about “when music really meant something” back in the days of Skrillex.
Growing up isn’t all bad though; at least I won’t be redirected to the Disney website when I tell certain websites my age.
What I really did on my 19th birthday was go to the Cellar, identifying the type of beer I was ordering as “that one,” left around the time a mediocre band started to sing Mumford & Sons, and headed to Boom for a good night of drunk dancing with some friends.
I’m back home now though. On my desk is my Gameboy with Pokémon in it; I lift it up in Hamlet-poor-Yorick fashion and ponder what’s gone from my childhood and what I have to look forward along the steps of adulthood.
Is it too late to catch them all?
Joseph Tunney is a second-year student. His humour column appears every other week in The Aquinian.
