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Twenty-one candles illuminate memory

By Tue Tran, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, on December 7, 2009 7:57 PM

By Tue Tran, Co-editor-in-chief -

With one sweep of a clock’s second hand, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided that it was okay for me to have wine with dinner. After years of going out with friends who could order a glass with their meals, it was a nice to finally have that option.

However, we place too much emphasis on alcohol at 21. To me, turning 21 — some arbitrary number — meant that I was deemed by someone to be “grown up.” And now, there are no other age minimums for me in society, except for senior discounts at movie theaters.

For me, however, turning 20 was even more monumental. I have always wanted to be “grown up,” and I was thrilled to turn 20 because I was leaving teenage-dom, where people dismiss everything you say as either naive or angsty. That’s why I was shocked to find that so many friends were afraid to turn 20. Aren’t the 20s supposed to be the best years of our lives?

But it wasn’t until I turned 21 that I recognized that some of the biggest changes I’ve seen in myself have come in this one year alone. Perhaps it was because of what was occurring around me, but I think it had a lot to do with having 20 years under my belt. It is at this point in my life that I truly felt nostalgic. Of course I’ve always reminisced about fond memories, but this feeling was different.

I was grocery shopping over the summer and passed by Toaster Strudels. I immediately rolled my cart back a step and looked at the variety. Not to be overly dramatic, but I felt a slight chill. Visions of my mother preparing the strudels before school came up in my mind. I could see the smiley-faced sun she drew for me with the icing — excuse me for my sentimentality. I had to grab a box.

Oddly, I was not just pushing a shopping cart down memory lane. In that moment, I recognized that that young “me” is not the “me” today. Of course childhood will always be a part of a person, but I felt so removed from it — well, at least a decade removed.

I then thought about the other versions of myself that have brought me to who I am at this very moment, and it was in this realization that I felt older. There are moments that I chuckle at and others that cause me to blush. Some episodes make me laugh even harder when I remember thinking that I would never survive past some of the embarrassment or drama or obstacles.

Yet here I am, and they are nothing but distant memories.

Perhaps that is what feeling “grown up” means: being able to look back and to laugh about the childishness and naivety, and realizing that life may be full of big moments, but they are only big for that one instant in time. And perhaps the smaller moments will one day seem much larger, like my mother’s smiley-faced sun.

I also remember the dreams of the younger me. While some of these dreams have changed, others remain the same. As a youth so eager to grow up and move to a big city, I could never have imagined that some hopes would be realized by 21. Accomplishing some of those goals rewards me with a substantial sense of growth and maturity, giving me a confidence to continue pursuing the rest.

Being in my 20s has given me an overall sense of serenity, even if every day is scheduled from sun up to way after sun down. This calm is definitely after the storm that is childhood — even though I know I have a lot more growing up to do before I’m a full-fledged “adult.”

The real world may be a bit of a rude awakening — as my mother likes to remind me — but I’m more excited for it than I am scared. If we have to find out what happens when “people stop being polite, and start getting real,” we might as well go in with enthusiasm rather than defeat.

As a new member of the 21 and over bracket, my biggest grown-up purchase thus far may not be a bottle of wine, but a box of Toaster Strudels, filled with strawberry and cream cheese. I’d like to say that they tasted just as good as I remembered, but it was tainted by all those “adult” concerns, such as Calories and nutritional value. Perhaps when I grab my next box, I’ll suspend all the knowledge I’ve gained these past years and simply enjoy.