25

I turned 25 on Tuesday, February 1, 2005. Turning 16 signified the official kick off of the tick toc countdown to my driver's test. At 18 the knowledge that I could vote gave my birthday a solid feel - think mahogany gavel landing lightly on Feb. 1, 1998 thereby pronouncing me a full, contributing citizen of the USA. Then there was 21, does much need to be said about that? But now, what does it mean to be nestled in the thick of my 20s?

In high school, a dear family friend, who is a few years older than me, took me out Christmas shopping. She was in college at the time, and for that alone I idolized her. Returning from our outing in the early evening, we were rumbling along in her appropriately beat up Volvo station wagon, making the turn from Rte. 1 onto an unlit side road. We were in Maine, so it was dark and cold. The kind of dark and cold that makes everything stand out in crisp relief. The headlights of the few other cars on the road glittered in twirling stars through the windshield as my friend told me: "love is a really wonderful thing, and if sex is part of that, well, that can be really great too."

About five years later, I was with the same friend. This time we were at a small diner propped on the stilts of a wharf downtown. We were discussing life, catching up on where we'd been in the last year and where we thought we might be headed. At some point in the conversation she said: "Your twenties are all about making mistakes. Whatever you do in your twenties, you can look back and say 'ah, but I was in my twenties!'"

So, here I am, settled into my twenties, and sometimes it does feel like a trial run for real life, which will start at some undetermined time, oh, say, probably when I turn 30. I suppose by "real life" I mean one that's anchored - to a place and to a person. There are times when all I want to do is hurry up and get there, most of all so that those twinges of homesickness/displacement that I sometimes feel when I walk into my own quiet apartment will go away. I'm not lonely per se, but knowing that I'm in a transitional stage of life does affect my psyche --- and those of most of my twentysomething friends as well.

What I heard my firend say, when she said this was a time for mistake-making, was that this is a time for trying on all sorts of different hats. So far, I’ve tried on a few, walked around in them a bit, and decided to return them to the hat stand. But its pretty fun, getting to see myself in these various roles, imagining where I might land if I stuck with it. However, nothing I’ve tried on yet has satisfactorily revved my pulse. I recognize that there’s no such thing as a job that’s perfect, but I’m not someone who’s interested in settling for boredom.

I'm keenly aware of how fast this time of complete self-exploration, self-indulgence, and freedom from any meaningful responsibility is passing. It's definitely "real life" too, and pretty damn uncluttered, relatively speaking. It's a pretty sweet spot, at least from my vantage point "in the field". There's a lot I'd like to pack into this unfettered time - living abroad, more school, and maybe a little more recklessness, and I'm starting to see it might not all happen just the way I imagined. But there's a lot to look forward to, a lot of possibility, and not much has had to be sacrificed yet. Will it ever be so simple again? Probably not.

Then again, my mom, who's in her mid-fifties, recently told me that she's more content with where she is now than ever before. Indeed, she and my father are living a pretty good life these days, by all accounts. So whether my twenties really are all about making mistakes, or being in a constant state of transition, or utter self-absorption, or being lost and floating in a sea of potential potential, the jury's out. But in the meantime, I'm enjoying the trial run, not least of all because I have a feeling it's only going to keep getting better from here.