Adult Birthdays...Meh

I celebrated my twenty-eighth birthday in the usual adult style—working 9 to 5.  To make it even more enjoyable, it was my hump day, even though it was Thursday, as I as scheduled to work that Saturday (although I really can’t complain about that, as I do the scheduling…) And what a lovely day it was—one of those days when we were short staffed, I was in charge, and everybody had a problem.  Our favorite (where’s the sarcasm font when you need it?) customer came in an threw a full-on, cursing, insulting tantrum, which is rather unbecoming in a sixty-year-old man, and it was gloomy and gray, which made it uncomfortably cold in the air conditioning. I went to Zumba after work, and then home to fix dinner—Mom had promised me barbecued chicken and broccoli salad for my birthday, but she had self-defense training (“Butt-kicking class,” as she and her friends refer to it), so I got to cook my own birthday dinner.  I made pasta with my two favorite sauces, though—Yay for comfort food.  (Edit: I finally got my barbecue chicken and broccoli salad on August 14th!)

However, my coworkers made up for it the next day. India (whose birthday was three days after mine) and I had a joint celebrations; we all brought food for a potluck snack-fest; I brought more of my favorite pasta, Latasha brought chips and plates, Karen brought chicken nuggets and vegetarian crescent roll pizza, India managed to make edible brownies despite her fame as a non-cooker, and Jo brought her trademark pigs-in-a-blanket and a crock pot full of Rotel dip, enough to feed all of us until we couldn’t move as well as several Kroger employees.  They also gave us a few little gifts; my favorite was lip gloss in the shape of a miniature Mountain Dew can. 

Ever since I graduated college, I’ve felt about twenty-six.  I’m not sure why twenty-six, of all ages; I guess I felt like I was still young, but didn’t feel the urge to be a wild twenty-one-year-old out partying.  Most of my friends that I spent a lot of time with during the period from the time I was twenty-two until, well, the last few months really, were quite a bit older than me; most of them, in fact, were married with children.  However, now twenty-six has come and gone, and I still feel about the same.  I still want to be a carefree twenty-something with plenty of time, but thirty is looming in the near future, and the biological clock ticks pretty loudly sometimes; I wonder how many times I can push the snooze button.    

I’ve loved my twenties; I’ve enjoyed being single and free and able to easily pick up and move to whichever far-flung place I found work to do.  Sometimes it just seems like these years have gone too fast.  There’s a song that my Pandora station plays frequently, with lyrics that go, “We are young, let’s set the world on fire!”  I feel kind of sad when I hear it, although I like it—I feel like I’m no longer part of the youth scene; setting things on fire sounds irresponsible. :)