On Turning Twenty-Four

Twenty-Four. What is there to say about it? (This is where I pause and let the Old Lady put in her two cents.)
...

(And I guess this where I realize, after a few moments of silence, that she has left me to fend for myself. I guess it is my fault. I never listened to her anyway. I’ll miss you, ya ol bag.)

And so it is. You can’t just take the people you love for granted and expect them to stick around forever. If they truly do love you they will try, probably for years, but there will come a time when they have to move on, because you are no longer good for them.

Twenty-Four. Eh. You know how I think you can tell you are leading a good life? If you aren’t completely bummed on your birthday. My first instinct every January 13th is that everyone is depressed on their birthday, but there has to be plenty of people out there who look forward to the future and can leave the past in the past. They look forward to moving on. They aren't scared. I believe these are the happy ones.

In the story I am currently working on the main character, Johnny, seems to sum up the unhappy ones:

“Think about it. Your whole life you want to be sixteen, then you want to be eighteen, then you desperately need to turn twenty-one, but after being twenty-one for a while you want to be seven again, because now you don’t really have anything to look forward to until you are sixty-five and can retire, and no one wants to think about that. You don’t care that you couldn’t drive, live on your own, or drink. You just want to play hide-n-seek. We realize that are seven year old selves were a lot happier than we are and all we want to do is go back, but since we know that is impossible we just try to keep from going forward. And so we fill our lives with events that are full of empty calories in an attempt not to grow, and we starve.”

Am I better off then when I was twenty-three? Not even close. Much worse in fact. Despite all efforts and decisions made in an attempt not to grow, I turned twenty-four anyway. Huh. I wish I could say that I saw that one coming.

...

A conversation had by the girls who sit in the cubicle next to mine. Loosely quoted, but still very real.

A:"I didn't know today was like a national day of mourning."

B: "Oh, for like President Ford?"

A: "Yeah."

C: "Is it on our calendar?"

Things That Upset Me But Probably Shouldn't

I heard this advertisement on the commercial and I was in a mood where it just really made me mad. It doesn't really make me mad now, but I do still think it is kind of dumb.

When my CD player is really cold it doesn't work at all, so while I was driving home from campus I was forced to listen to the University radio station and an advertisement came on with some kid talking. "You know about air pollution, and water pollution, and even noise pollution, but do you know about light pollution?" The kid explained a little about what light pollution is and then some proffesor started talking about how we should cover up our lights so that only the area that needs to be lighted gets lit. She said how depressed she gets when she can't see her stars at night. Well, Cedar isn't exactly Vegas, is it? If you want to see more stars just head to the edge of town, which is eight minutes in any direction, and then take ten steps and you will be able to see all the stars you want. She then said that light pollution has also been linked to cancer, but you can't really use cancer to guilt people into doing things these days though. Everything causes cancer.

I got all worked up and was yelling at the stupid lady on the radio.

I have also noticed that the last little while I have been a lot more irritable. I have come to the conclusion that my job has a lot to do with. Working in quality control is kind of rough. All I do all day is fix people's mistakes. Some make the same ones over and over again, no matter how many times I tell them. I think now it is starting to spill over into my normal life so that all I do when I am not at work is look for mistakes. So I yell at the T.V. and radio, but also at real people. I tend to tell people how they are wrong all the time. Not really because I care about them and am trying to help them, but because at work I am used to always having the last say, so they should be doing it the right/my way. I don't know how I haven't gotten beaten up yet.