ten things I miss about being 21.
1. Staying up for four nights straight and still finding too many fun things to do on Night Five that didn’t involve resting.
2. I had never seen a gray hair. On my head, that is.
3. I hadn’t been in love yet. The idea still seemed perfect at that point, too.
4. Being five feet tall. My arms were still “to scale.”
5. Limo rides with Margaret, Gregg, Jeff and Glenn (Well, just the one. But it was sweetness incarnate.)
6. I still had four years to believe I would be married with a fabulous job at a newspaper by 25.
7. Counseling gaggles of girls at summer camp (some of which are 29 now! What?)
8. My two front teeth (later to be demolished repeatedly in freak karaoke microphone incidents)
9. About 90% less mistakes made (21-33 has been a rich time… )
10. The everyday pleasures: cheap wings; HUB coffee; 48 variations on fettuccine; playing Oilman until 4 am; sitting in laundromats for hours; getting stuck in snowbanks in giant old cars; wearing snow boots with dresses and not even knowing how Fundamentalist Mormon I likely looked; pre-internet existence; meeting paper deadlines on sheer force of will; and my whole big gorgeous future, totally untouched.
Someone asked me today if I would go back and do things differently. Something tells me, though, that I’d make all the same mistakes, because I’m still the same girl.
If I knew what to avoid, though?
What do you think? Anything you miss?
July 30th, 2007 at 2:30 am
I only miss the feeling of immortality. So much to do. So little time. 84.6 years just won’t do.
July 30th, 2007 at 3:34 am
I’m desperate to know what Oilman is.
July 30th, 2007 at 3:49 am
I linked for you, Darren.:-) Bear in mind — I was at the University of Alberta back then. Not the University of Calgary, mind you…
July 30th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Hmm, 21. There’s a lot I don’t miss about being 21 (the drama! oh god, the drama), particularly since it was a rather self-centered time in my life. But some things, ah, I miss ‘em:
1. Having a day stretch out in front of me without so many deadlines and to-dos and errands. I wanted to read curled up in the sunshine? Go to! I wanted to take a daydream? why not? No more.
2. Feeling really strong and lean. Height of field hockey training in college and running a “warm up” of five miles was a no brainer.
3. Being the precocious kiddo.
4. Not having to slather my face with 45 SPF everytime I wanted to be outside.
Ah well, life is long. I’m sure I’ll look back at 31 someday with wistfulness. Eh?
July 30th, 2007 at 8:39 am
OOf, sorry, can’t give this post that much though. It literally hurts too much and makes me want to hide in a closet. I can’t be introspective about this, it makes me all morbid about my lost youth and wasted time and….GARRGHGHSHSH
Feh.
I’ll come back later when there is a post on top of this one and you aren’t asking me to think.
July 30th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Um, are you even 25 yet? Yeah.
July 30th, 2007 at 9:30 am
I never thought I’d say this, but I miss university.
I miss all-night study sessions with my friends with pizza and Tim Horton’s coffee runs at 4 am. I SERIOUSLY miss sleeping in till 1 pm. I miss staying up all night chatting on the computer.
I miss the freedom that I had with my time.
I also miss the hope I had for the future. I mean, I still have hope for the future, but my spirit and aspirations have just been a little dampened now by real life. I guess I miss the HIGH hopes and my naivete.
July 30th, 2007 at 11:03 am
I miss cutting classes to sleep in, listen to music, drink coffee with friends. I miss not knowing what I wanted to do - and not worrying about it. And I miss not having the memories of the relationships that were to come and weren’t meant to be.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Having my Mum around. She was here when I was 21 and gone was I when 22. Some 20+ years later, and enjoying my current age, I think that this would be the only reason I’d go back to being 21 again.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I know you hate hearing this, but your future is still very big. And gorgeous.
I miss Nixon.
July 30th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Wow, Oilman. That’s weird.
July 30th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Being able to stay up all night.
Not having aching joints.
Doing certain things that my son would arrest me for today… (sigh…)
July 30th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Rick, I thought of you when I took the picture of Fiddlin’ Fred. And Nixon? That made me laugh out loud.
And Darren, it was weird. But oddly fun.
July 30th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Being able to eat whatever I wanted to and not having it go to my hips.
The boundless energy and the ability to sleep when I wanted to.
July 31st, 2007 at 9:09 am
What do I miss about being 21? Absolutely nothing.
My phsyical fitness peaked when I was 29 when I ran 10k every other day, benched my own weight, and had 8% body fat. I’m working on getting that back now. I’m going to spend my 30s looking and feeling great.
I am happier now than I ever was at 21. A decade ago I was working on a nasty case of depression and would spend the first half of my 20s on meds.
At 21 I was not pre-Internet, sadly, and had been bathing in the light of the Net for 5 years. Anyone remember Gopher? Nowadays I sit on the deck with friends, go out and do shit, and sometimes date girls :)
July 31st, 2007 at 10:36 am
Yes, 25, but it hasn’t been a good several years. I’m holding out for 35.
July 31st, 2007 at 2:32 pm
some people that know me and know how horrible my divorce was have asked me in the past if i could go back in time would i not marry that person. i always have to say no. i would not go back and change it. i wouldn’t be the person that i am today if i had not been married to him. i wouldn’t have the friends that i have now. my life would have been completely different. and i choose not to know if it could have been different in a better way than it is now.
July 31st, 2007 at 6:32 pm
1. University, hands down. Pulling all nighters with my friend Camille, drinking way too much diet coke, smoking way too many cigarettes (neither of which I do anymore).
2. Making out with boys while listening to Sade (it was the year of Indecent Proposal and Sade’s No Ordinary Love - Yum).
3. Not having any cellulite on my ass yet.
4. Having plenty of time to figure out what I want to do with my life.
5. The freedom (even though I probably didn’t realize just how free I was back then).