By the time this article is published for you all to read I will have finally turned 21 years old. It’s the big 21 and typically people are more than excited to turn this special age the main reason being that buying and drinking alcohol in the U.S. is finally legal. With every 21st birthday comes a clever Instagram post with the squad and long snap chat stories of the night full of endless drinking at various bars and hopefully stumbling home that night safe and healthy. Call me boring, a grandma, or dumb but turning 21 to me is just another birthday like all the rest. Don’t get me wrong I love celebrating my birthday because I love being around my family and friends, but turning 21 is no different. This year, my cousins were adamant to throw me a huge party by taking my family and I downtown in a limo to a nice restaurant to celebrate like they did when they turned 21. I was polite and went along with their planning, but what I really desired was to celebrate my birthday the same way I have been for the last 20 years of my life having a barbeque in my grandma’s backyard and swimming in the pool.
Growing up there was nothing more fun than being in the pool with my family and friends playing volleyball and catching glimpses of the adults outside of the pool. My uncles always sit in the same chairs and have the same conversations and eventually fall asleep at one point. My dad is at the grill and my mom is hustling getting the food ready. The rest of my aunts and cousins are sitting at the picnic bench talking with my grandma who is always drinking a 7Up with a straw. And last my dog is running around barking at any and everything he sees. But my birthday would not be the same without these rituals. Eventually as the planning became stressful on my cousins I told them I would take over and plan my own party, and thus I finally got what I desired- a pool party at my grandmas. The only difference this year is there will be larger amounts of beer and booze at my party knowing all my friends and I will contribute to finishing off the alcoholic beverages.
To me turning 21 isn’t about going out, eating an expensive dinner, living it up on the town, getting wasted, dancing on tables and coming home feeling sick. To me, turning 21 is like finally getting rid of a car seat as a child. Once we are old enough to get rid of the car seat we feel older, freer, and mature but we are still riding in the same car, at the same speed, with the same people. The only difference is that we are one year older and a lot more comfortable. Just because I’m 21 doesn’t change anything. I still live with my parents, enjoy being around my family, appreciate spending my birthday with my whole family and having a good time, only now am I able to order a beer at dinner and make my dad pay for it.
