Time Stops for No (Wo)Man

This morning I received notice that my driver's license needed to be renewed. I stared at the paper for a moment or two, trying to work out whether the DMV was pulling my leg or not. Unfortunately, experience has told me that the Department of Motor Vehicles has no measurable sense of humor at all. So this had to be real.

This can't be right, I thought, digging through my wallet for my license. I'm not old enough to need a license renewal!

And yet there it was, a glaring declaration for all to see:

"Under 21 until: 10/19/2006

Valid until: 10/20/2006"

Good Lord and in the name of all that is holy, I'm going to be 21. I'm going to need to trade in my lovely vertical license for a standard horizontal license. I'm not old enough for all of this!

I suppose I really wasn't all that upset about my need to visit the DMV (though the picture on my current license is rather nice and I am loathe to change it). It was the 21 thing that had me in a tizzy.

I always pictured that I would be a different person when I turned that magical age. I would be tall, pretty, have a significant other, own a car, live in an apartment, have published something of some merit... That other person, that 21 year old, wasn't me. She was everything that I wanted to be. She had done everything that I wanted to do. She was wiser, more secure, and more sophisticated than me. She understood people better, held better conversations, regularly dazzled the writing world with essays of intelligence and deep truths.

And here I am, less than two months away from my 21st birthday, and still very much a kid inside and outside. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to be disappointed with myself or not. After all, having a young mentality isn't necessarily a bad thing. My overlord at Jew Camp always says that an effective counselor needs to be child-like and imaginative. You have to be careful, however, not to cross the line into childishness. I believe that I managed to giggle at stupid jokes and play silly games this summer without losing myself to the kid inside. I managed to stay the 20 year old.

So while I still split my sides laughing at "your mom" jokes and find pleasure blowing bubbles for a family friend's Israeli children, I guess I'm headed irrevocably towards physical adulthood. No helping that. But, as long as I keep my inner child happy, I guess I always have a job at summer camp.

K.

PS. That post went nowhere. Guess I haven't reached that 21 year old writer yet.