I Am 29

I was born on January 25, 1974. As of August 4, 2007, I am 29 years old. You can try to show me the math, you can argue with me, you can insult me. You will never convince me that I am anything but 29 years old.

I didn’t experience a “normal” life in my twenties. There were some adventures in the Pacific, some formal education,some lessons at the school of “hard knocks”, and a lot of alcoholic blackouts. There were also some periods of debilitating depression where I stayed in bed for several days, or delayed my degree by ten years, or the 1000 great projects I never completed (or never even started).

I had a lot of fun that I don’t remember, and I missed out on a lot of good times. Therefore, I have declared the foreseeable future to be my “twenties”. I have more wisdom and less handicaps now, so I can enjoy it more. I think 29 is a realistic number, so I am sticking with it. I have been 29 for several years now, and will be for another 15 or twenty years to come, I think.

I now see that having sexual romps with as many women as possible is shallow and dangerous. But perhaps I can convince my wife to pretend we are both in our twenties and on Spring Break. Moreover, sex isn’t half as exciting without the context of love, commitment, good times and bad, kids and other fiscal responsibilities, a long list of IOU’s, etc…

I now realize how alcohol prevented me from fully experiencing so many important moments of my life. I am now enjoying the fact that I can participate in events without inebriation, I have all of my physical faculties available to me, I do not have a tendency to embarrass myself, and the added bonus is that I get to remember the activities in the morning.

I now realize that I will not live forever: I can be killed by most conventional methods. Therefore, I can better calculate the risk-to-reward ratio and avoid so many stupid things that could have ended my twenties. I can also avoid the things that were killing me slowly: cigarettes, inactivity, excessive stress over miniscule issues, and daily McDonalds lunches.

The first decade of my twenties was a total waste, but for the wealth of lessons learned and a few select events (such as meeting my wife, having kids, and serving my country). The next two decades of my twenties are going to be a lot more fun, I am going to get a lot accomplished, and I am going to remember it all this time.