20nothing.com

When I was five years old, I would mourn on the day after my birthday. Waking up to no special attention, no presents and an extra year of life paled in comparison to the previous day of glitter and excitement. As an adult, it is even worse. No special attention and a suicide-inducing hangover, because, apparently Jack Lives In My Liver.
To celebrate twenty-years of survival, I drank a glass of bourbon for every annum, just to prove that I could.
“How does it feel being twenty-five?” LA Girl Friend asked me when we woke up at midday and I had rolled onto a fork.
“I feel every day of being eighty-five and look thrity-five.”
It was depressing.

A fat Mexican elevated my mood, slightly, when he questioned my age to buy cigarettes. Girls are much simpler creatures than we are given credit for. All it takes to stop us killing ourselves is a proposition that we resemble a teenager.

My first day as a twenty-five year old resembled my first day alive: I cried because I was hungry, slept off the previous nights efforts and for the first time opened my eyes to the reality that is my existence. My dad was twenty-five when I was born and I find it to be somewhat of a bonding experience that our quarter century celebrations both involved dealing with the infantile version of me.

With no one on hand to feed me or wipe my ass, I got my shit together to do it all myself. The process, however, turned into a realization that I spent every cent to my name at a bar.
“Aren’t bar tenders supposed to cut you off after a certain point?”
The reality that I can spend hundreds of dollars on liquor and still be allowed out in public – and surviving – may be the greatest achievement I have made in all of my life.
“What was the best thing you did as a twenty-four year old?” LA Girl Friend asked during the second round of drinks.
“The best thing I did?” I pondered for a moment. “Either writing a philosophy thesis or [The Prettiest Boy In The World] [official name]”
“And what do you want to do for the next year?”
I ordered another round of drinks, thus instantaneously achieving a goal.

Dealing with the pain of aging and drinking aged whiskey, I sat down with the quarter I had left to my name, and pondered why I am so bothered with the idea of growing up.
“If I wasn’t a half is glass full [of scotch] type of person,” I told LA Girl Friend. “I would kill myself right now. I have no job. No house. No money. No dog. No car. No attractive people to even entertain the idea of getting laid. And no food.”
“Oh, you want to play that game? OK. I have a job I hate and a boss who hates me. I live in an ashtray that repels men. And I am so far in debt just to survive.”
Why didn’t anyone even hint that your twenties are hard?

Age never bothered me before because, well, I was really young. But, also, because I could never buy into the trap of being defined by a number. Still refusing to acknowledge preconceived ideas of what a person should do, I have found that aging is merely hard because it becomes an increasing battle of justification.
“Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”
“Why don’t you want a baby?”
“Why don’t you watch the news instead of cartoons?”
LA Girl Friend and I decided to clean the ashtray we call home. The process, however, turned into a realization of what we did on my last night as a twenty-four year old.
“You have a whole glass of bourbon and a half smoked cigarette beside your bed. Nice try.” She moved over to her bed. “I think my sheets are covered in sand. No. No. It’s cake crumbs.”
We sat on the floor, staring at a blank television that was refusing to work and pondered why we are so overwhelmed with the idea of getting older.

Hindsight makes me feel stupid for being depressed because I was eleven with a day old My Little Pony. And I know that, at fifty, hindsight is going to make me feel stupid for being depressed because I was twenty-five, horny, and hungover. I decided to have another drink, just to prove that I could survive it, and crawled into my crumb covered bed hoping that the next quarter of a century offers me something.
Because, at twenty-five, it seems pretty common to have 20nothing.