I've been 26 years old for 3.5 weeks now, and I think I'm just now starting to feel...something. There's something familiar about realizing and reflecting on the fact that you've passed the divide between your seminal 20th year and the looming 30th. What should I have accomplished by then? Where am I supposed to be? Am I even on the right track?
Wherever I end up, at least I'll have some cool stories to tell. I'll tell them that one summer, in my mid-twenties, I ran off to Japan to volunteer at a world scout camp, walked through the torii gates at the Fumini Inari shrine, scaled Mt. Fuji with my little brother, hunted for watches in Tokyo's Ginza district, attended the wedding of the first person in my generation to get hitched, prepared to welcome the newest member of the family, got PADI certified, found love by the San Luis Obispo creek, had my life threatened in Marrakech, walked along the walls Hollywood used to show a dragon burning people alive, followed a teenage boy through the alleys of Chefchaouen to find a couple bottles of cheap beer, and studied for the Graduate Record Examination as I worked to find my way back home.
And yet despite these adventures (and misadventures), at the moment of writing, I lie upon my friend's bed, typing out my story on a barely functioning phone. Still worried. Still anxious. Still unsatisfied.
Wherever I end up, at least I'll have some cool stories to tell. I'll tell them that one summer, in my mid-twenties, I ran off to Japan to volunteer at a world scout camp, walked through the torii gates at the Fumini Inari shrine, scaled Mt. Fuji with my little brother, hunted for watches in Tokyo's Ginza district, attended the wedding of the first person in my generation to get hitched, prepared to welcome the newest member of the family, got PADI certified, found love by the San Luis Obispo creek, had my life threatened in Marrakech, walked along the walls Hollywood used to show a dragon burning people alive, followed a teenage boy through the alleys of Chefchaouen to find a couple bottles of cheap beer, and studied for the Graduate Record Examination as I worked to find my way back home.
And yet despite these adventures (and misadventures), at the moment of writing, I lie upon my friend's bed, typing out my story on a barely functioning phone. Still worried. Still anxious. Still unsatisfied.
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