Eat and drink at 21; be merry when you’re 50 The Final Word
It was written with such enthusiasm that it screamed out to be noticed. You couldn’t miss it.
Reminiscent of those “Just Married!” greetings scrawled on a car’s rear win- dow, there it was on the huge back window of an SUV. “FINALLY! 21!”
Not only that, the SUV was illegally parked at a corner, as if the birthday celebrant couldn’t wait to find a legal spot. There was partying to be done. Time’s a wastin’. Pull over now.
Good grief, I thought. If only they knew.
I remember being 21. I even remember where I was when I turned that magical age. I also know I wouldn’t go back there, not for all of Mark Zuckerberg’s billions. Not for anything.
The 20s were not the high point in my life. It was a decade of too many questions and too few answers. Who am I? What am I doing? Where am I going?
I didn’t have a clue. It didn’t help that I was mulling my fate while eating Kraft macaroni and cheese and living on $100 a week. Before taxes.
I’m not alone, I know. I’ve talked about the 20s with friends my age. Most agree it’s a decade of no return.
In her new memoir, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, former New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen takes on the aging process with her trademark reassuring voice. She agrees that younger is not necessarily better.
She reports that a Gallup poll of 340,000 people showed unequivocally that we get more content as we age. “Respondents started out at 18 feeling really good about themselves and their lives, then became less and less satisfied as the years went by,” she writes. The good news is that after 50, there was “a change in the weather,” and from then on, happiness was on an upward trajectory into the 80s.
If true, I should be verging on the downright giddy any day now.
I spoke to sixth-graders at Sidwell Friends School in Washington the other day. It’s Chelsea Clinton’s alma mater and where the Obama girls go. A good place filled with bright kids. The class was nothing but raised hands and questions galore.
I walked home, giving myself time to think about the hour that had just passed. It went well, I thought, but I’m beyond ancient to these kids. I know that. I could be their parent, maybe even a grandparent.
I’ll be 63 this fall. They have 10 years before turning 21.
I’m happy. They’re happy. We’ll just leave it at that. What they don’t know . . .