Today is April 22, 2013. I have been seeing/hearing/feeling the number twenty-two all over the place today in small ways. I don’t know what, if anything, it means, but it made me stop and think about what twenty-two means to me.
I have always considered it to be one of my “lucky” numbers, if there is such a thing. I never play the lottery so I don’t know why I would need lucky numbers, but I just like it. I like the way it looks and I like to write it. If written in a certain way, the two is an elegant looking number with the delicate little flourish at the bottom. I like the way it sounds when you say it, the way each “t” springs off your tongue. It’s an even number and divides nice and exactly. Split it in half and you have eleven, which is another of my “lucky” numbers and one I see all over the place all the time.
I have always considered it to be one of my “lucky” numbers, if there is such a thing. I never play the lottery so I don’t know why I would need lucky numbers, but I just like it. I like the way it looks and I like to write it. If written in a certain way, the two is an elegant looking number with the delicate little flourish at the bottom. I like the way it sounds when you say it, the way each “t” springs off your tongue. It’s an even number and divides nice and exactly. Split it in half and you have eleven, which is another of my “lucky” numbers and one I see all over the place all the time.
"...I'd be happy... like the older girls in magazines, movies, and TV..."
When I was a young girl I remember believing that twenty-two was the “it” age. I believed when I was twenty-two life would be all set. To me, twenty-two was officially “grown-up” status and I’d be happy as a clam. I would be done with school, I would have a slim figure like the older girls in magazines, movies, and TV, I’d be married, I’d have a great job that I loved, a grown up job-a career. My dreams were so simple then, as a young girl. All I wanted was to be twenty-two because twenty-two was where things were perfect. At twenty-two I’d have no more worries, no more troubles and life would be perfect.
My favorite uncle died in 1991 at the age of twenty-two. I was ten. I remember thinking my uncle was so grown up. He was in the navy, he had a real nice girlfriend that was so nice to me and my sister, and everyone loved him. He was the only redhead in the whole family and he sparked up a room when he walked into it with his fiery personality. Yet, as cool and grown up and amazing as he was in my eyes, he always had time for his nieces and nephews. His death was the single most tragic thing to happen to this family during my lifetime.
In 2003 I turned twenty-two myself. What a shock. I didn’t feel grown up at all, farthest thing from it. I didn’t have all the things I thought I would. I still lived at home with my parents. I didn’t even have a car. I didn’t have a boyfriend, let alone a husband, no freedom, no drop dead gorgeous figure, nothing about me that I thought said, “Hey this girl is grown up and has it all together”. I did have a great job at the time, working for the PetSmart corporate office. Still, I felt like I had missed something, some vital choice that I’d made wrong, or that I’d been cheated somehow.
Then I realized that I was the same age as my uncle when he passed away. That was a real weird place to be. Suddenly, when I looked at his picture, frozen in time, he looked different. He didn’t look as old, as “grown up”, as he used to. It was then I began to really feel just how young twenty-two really is. I find myself thinking about him from time to time, usually at some big family event, wishing he were here, feeling like he should be a part of it. However, like my dad told me once when I mentioned this, he is here, in each of us, looking down on us. He’s seen all of it, my high school graduation, my sister’s college graduation, my cousins’ graduations and marriages and births, all of it.
This year I will turn thirty-two, a whole ten years older than my “magic” age, and I still don’t have it all figured out. Some days I feel so old, like I should have had it all put together and finalized at twenty-two, like I missed my chance for greatness. I’ve only just begun to realize that that’s not true. I don’t have to have it all figured out even at thirty-two. Honestly, where’s the fun in that? What I didn’t realize at the time, wishing I’d have everything set at twenty-two, was that if everything was set and perfect, no worries, no troubles, no fears, that there’d also be no more adventures, no fun, no risks, nothing new, no living. Life may as well have ended if you think about it. If there’s nothing more to accomplish, nothing better to aim for, then why keep going? I certainly didn’t want it to be all over at twenty-two the way it ended for my uncle. There’s too much I want to do.
I have a different view now of twenty-two then I did back when I was ten. I still think it’s a great age. You’re old enough to be free, but still young enough to have the world at your feet. I’ve also realized that the old saying is true, (funny thing about those old sayings-must be why they’ve lasted long enough to be “old” sayings.) you really are only as old as you feel. Right now? I feel twenty-two.
My favorite uncle died in 1991 at the age of twenty-two. I was ten. I remember thinking my uncle was so grown up. He was in the navy, he had a real nice girlfriend that was so nice to me and my sister, and everyone loved him. He was the only redhead in the whole family and he sparked up a room when he walked into it with his fiery personality. Yet, as cool and grown up and amazing as he was in my eyes, he always had time for his nieces and nephews. His death was the single most tragic thing to happen to this family during my lifetime.
In 2003 I turned twenty-two myself. What a shock. I didn’t feel grown up at all, farthest thing from it. I didn’t have all the things I thought I would. I still lived at home with my parents. I didn’t even have a car. I didn’t have a boyfriend, let alone a husband, no freedom, no drop dead gorgeous figure, nothing about me that I thought said, “Hey this girl is grown up and has it all together”. I did have a great job at the time, working for the PetSmart corporate office. Still, I felt like I had missed something, some vital choice that I’d made wrong, or that I’d been cheated somehow.
Then I realized that I was the same age as my uncle when he passed away. That was a real weird place to be. Suddenly, when I looked at his picture, frozen in time, he looked different. He didn’t look as old, as “grown up”, as he used to. It was then I began to really feel just how young twenty-two really is. I find myself thinking about him from time to time, usually at some big family event, wishing he were here, feeling like he should be a part of it. However, like my dad told me once when I mentioned this, he is here, in each of us, looking down on us. He’s seen all of it, my high school graduation, my sister’s college graduation, my cousins’ graduations and marriages and births, all of it.
This year I will turn thirty-two, a whole ten years older than my “magic” age, and I still don’t have it all figured out. Some days I feel so old, like I should have had it all put together and finalized at twenty-two, like I missed my chance for greatness. I’ve only just begun to realize that that’s not true. I don’t have to have it all figured out even at thirty-two. Honestly, where’s the fun in that? What I didn’t realize at the time, wishing I’d have everything set at twenty-two, was that if everything was set and perfect, no worries, no troubles, no fears, that there’d also be no more adventures, no fun, no risks, nothing new, no living. Life may as well have ended if you think about it. If there’s nothing more to accomplish, nothing better to aim for, then why keep going? I certainly didn’t want it to be all over at twenty-two the way it ended for my uncle. There’s too much I want to do.
I have a different view now of twenty-two then I did back when I was ten. I still think it’s a great age. You’re old enough to be free, but still young enough to have the world at your feet. I’ve also realized that the old saying is true, (funny thing about those old sayings-must be why they’ve lasted long enough to be “old” sayings.) you really are only as old as you feel. Right now? I feel twenty-two.