When I think about how old I’m going to be next year, I wonder what it will feel like to say I’m 27.
Then, my mind will shift back into normal operating mode and I’ll remember that I’m currently 25 and thus will be turning 26 next year. Strange.
I’ve always been paranoid about my “even years.” This feeling that there is something ominous about them. I’m phobic at even numbers. Yes, I am mildly OCD, but what red-blooded human being doesn’t have their share of strange and inexplicable emotional leanings?
18, 20, 22, 24. Thus far, some important shift has happened during each of those ages. Not only the obvious ones, but ones having to do with love, and heartache, and heartbreak. Things happened that hurt. Things happened that changed me. Maybe that’s why I am trying to zip past 26 right into 27.
It’s irrational when I really think about it, though. 17, 19, 21, 23. Intense things have happened during each of those years as well, but there’s something about them that has always been tinged with abandon and exuberance. Or at least that’s how I see them. Perhaps because 17 was a beginning, and 19 was a recovery from trauma, and 21 was another beginning, and 23 was–beginning. I feel like I became a different person in each of those years. Some kind of joy and life sprung from me.
And 25? Twenty five, a quarter, is in its own category of feeling. I don’t think I would lump 25 into either category. It doesn’t feel right. It’s not technically an even number, but it is a milestone. It’s when adulthood has (supposedly) truly arrived. Multiples of 5 just feel somehow “even.”
Anyway. 26 is coming. Perhaps the pattern will shift. Perhaps the pattern will continue simply because I will look for it. That’s the way it goes, isn’t it?
Still, I’m looking forward to saying “27.”
narinda heng 