eighty-three minus eighty-three
Prologue
I don't know about other countries, but in America turning twenty boils down to a slap in the face. Every birthday until that is full of joy. In your first year you don’t know anything, so you can’t even realize that you are a miracle. Then you are one, and we all know that one is lonely, but for the most part, when you are a baby, one really isn’t lonely, because everyone loves you. Then it goes to your head and we get to be terrible when we are two.
Personally three was big for me because I had a hernia and the chicken pox, and age three is when I started remembering. My third birthday was hugely important in unleashing my jovial personality. At the time we lived in Savannah, Georgia; and Disney World was but a short drive away. So for my birthday we packed into that old brown Lincoln Town Car with room for all four of us. This being my first real memory, I remember funny little things: my ten year old brother got the seat, I got the space in front of the seat. We got to Disney World, and there was a huge celebration because Mickey Mouse was born (created) November 18th, and we were there the day before my birthday (my birthday is November 19th). So, as I was saying, there was a huge celebration, and in some wild turn of events I found myself alone, beside the Mouse himself, on top of a cake/stage standing behind 3 foot tall plastic candles which were blown out on the count of three.
Four and five roll by like nothing, and sometime around that age you start school, and every year is spent waiting excited for the next. Ten brings you into the double digits, eleven is the first repeating number, and thirteen makes you a teenager. At fifteen you go to driving school. Sixteen means you can drive alone which clearly leads to excess making-out. Seventeen allows you admittance to rated R movies. Eighteen is time to care about politics, because you can vote now, and all of your history teachers say you should. Nineteen is the finale of your teenage years.
That brings us to twenty, the age when nothing is really that cool, you aren’t a teenager and you can’t drink (legally). They say that you are most likely to get into trouble for drinking during that year before you turn twenty-one. So the point I am trying to get across is that twenty sucks.
Twenty was oddly exciting for me. On my twentieth birthday I never imagined that I would finally fail out of college and be asked to leave. You see, I had failed out each of my four semesters there, but somehow I had talked my way back into school. But I suppose fourth time is the charm, so I threw in the towel and headed home. I worked two jobs and went to community college. Just to clarify, I’m fairly smart; hence, I hated community college, it was like going back to high school. My disgust with my situation was my drive. I promised myself to finally get it together and make it happen. I knew that nothing could stand in my way, and a bit more than a month before the close of my twentieth year, I made a list of eighty-three things I wanted to do before I died. I had made lists of this nature before, and I had done some of the things that were on this new list, but I decided that nothing before that faithful day, October 2nd, counted, because obviously some things need to be done more than once, and secondly, you can’t have a fresh start and only put the bad things out of your mind, no a fresh start is a fresh start. You may wonder why I picked eighty-three, no it’s not my favorite number, that would be nineteen, I picked eighty-three because that is how many fit on my page. If you were involved in my life before October 2nd, I apologize for belittling your importance. To those who really helped me live my life, thank you, you know who you are.
On October 2nd, I decided to live my life to the fullest, every last drop, and this is my story.
I don't know about other countries, but in America turning twenty boils down to a slap in the face. Every birthday until that is full of joy. In your first year you don’t know anything, so you can’t even realize that you are a miracle. Then you are one, and we all know that one is lonely, but for the most part, when you are a baby, one really isn’t lonely, because everyone loves you. Then it goes to your head and we get to be terrible when we are two.
Personally three was big for me because I had a hernia and the chicken pox, and age three is when I started remembering. My third birthday was hugely important in unleashing my jovial personality. At the time we lived in Savannah, Georgia; and Disney World was but a short drive away. So for my birthday we packed into that old brown Lincoln Town Car with room for all four of us. This being my first real memory, I remember funny little things: my ten year old brother got the seat, I got the space in front of the seat. We got to Disney World, and there was a huge celebration because Mickey Mouse was born (created) November 18th, and we were there the day before my birthday (my birthday is November 19th). So, as I was saying, there was a huge celebration, and in some wild turn of events I found myself alone, beside the Mouse himself, on top of a cake/stage standing behind 3 foot tall plastic candles which were blown out on the count of three.
Four and five roll by like nothing, and sometime around that age you start school, and every year is spent waiting excited for the next. Ten brings you into the double digits, eleven is the first repeating number, and thirteen makes you a teenager. At fifteen you go to driving school. Sixteen means you can drive alone which clearly leads to excess making-out. Seventeen allows you admittance to rated R movies. Eighteen is time to care about politics, because you can vote now, and all of your history teachers say you should. Nineteen is the finale of your teenage years.
That brings us to twenty, the age when nothing is really that cool, you aren’t a teenager and you can’t drink (legally). They say that you are most likely to get into trouble for drinking during that year before you turn twenty-one. So the point I am trying to get across is that twenty sucks.
Twenty was oddly exciting for me. On my twentieth birthday I never imagined that I would finally fail out of college and be asked to leave. You see, I had failed out each of my four semesters there, but somehow I had talked my way back into school. But I suppose fourth time is the charm, so I threw in the towel and headed home. I worked two jobs and went to community college. Just to clarify, I’m fairly smart; hence, I hated community college, it was like going back to high school. My disgust with my situation was my drive. I promised myself to finally get it together and make it happen. I knew that nothing could stand in my way, and a bit more than a month before the close of my twentieth year, I made a list of eighty-three things I wanted to do before I died. I had made lists of this nature before, and I had done some of the things that were on this new list, but I decided that nothing before that faithful day, October 2nd, counted, because obviously some things need to be done more than once, and secondly, you can’t have a fresh start and only put the bad things out of your mind, no a fresh start is a fresh start. You may wonder why I picked eighty-three, no it’s not my favorite number, that would be nineteen, I picked eighty-three because that is how many fit on my page. If you were involved in my life before October 2nd, I apologize for belittling your importance. To those who really helped me live my life, thank you, you know who you are.
On October 2nd, I decided to live my life to the fullest, every last drop, and this is my story.
posted by Repoclause | Thursday, October 05, 2006
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