This is why I'm optimistic for 21

In one week I turn 21. I always do a mental self-evaluation to see if I enjoyed the past year and what it brought for me. I started doing this when I was around 13 or 14. By far my favorite age was 15. I’m not the only one. Taylor Swift wrote a song about it. Although, I hate her music so I’ve never listened to it. For all I know it’s about drugs and hot pants. I know I have a lot of living to do so it sounds funny that I already have a favorite age, but 15 was just the best.

And I find myself always trying to play catch-up to it in the sense that I am always trying to feel the way I felt when I was 15. But the problem with that is I will never feel the same way. Things were new to me and I was just getting a taste of freedom. I had little worries and had this broad future in front of me. And thinking back to it I smile. But then I think forward, and I think, I have the same thing going for me. I still have tons of new experiences waiting for me. I still have such a broad, bright future. I don’t have to recreate being 15; I just have to enjoy being 21. 

So how was 20? I don’t know yet. It went by the quickest out of any year for me. Nothing crazy happened. Maybe that’s a good thing. So 20 wasn’t 15. It was 20. At least it wasn’t 17. 17 was the worst. The funny thing is that even though I say that so firmly, I know deep down that there were amazing moments to 17. And so I know that while 17 was horrendous, there were actually tiny rays of light that peeked through that stone cold year. So if 17 had tiny (and I mean tiny) pockets of hope then no matter what I’m not worried about 21.

On the upside, I’m feeling pretty positive about 21. Not just because I can legally go to a sports bar to watch a basketball game during the NBA Finals (don’t get me started); but because it’s a fresh-picked new opportunity to start over. It’s sounds so cliché but even clichés have a beautiful message somewhere in there. I think for me, that message is that I have a new year to figure things out. And if I don’t, well then I’m officially legal and able to drink it all away.