21 is so passé

Tell a person that it's your birthday, and quite often his or her face will light up with vicarious glee. Tell them you're turning anything other than 18 or 21, however, and that shining look will quickly recede. \n"Well that's OK," they say with faux encouragement, trying to help you get over the fact that you are celebrating a terribly boring age.\n"Just one more year," they say at 20.\n"Nothing left now," they admit at 22. \nBut maybe, if you're optimistic, you can still eke out some meager joy on your special day. \nWell, I have a confession to make. As a freshly initiated 22-year-old, I am ready to admit that I never even liked 21. Aside from the convenience of becoming legal, it has very little to offer. Once the celebration is over, the excitement is too, yet you have to be 21 for 364 more days. Sure, you're a drinker, but as lawful drinkers go, you're at the bottom of the barrel. It's like being a freshman all over again.\nBut that's not even the worst part. Did you notice how naturally "21" coincided with "drinking?" That correlation never goes away. Twenty-one-year-olds are rarely dissociated from the enablement of that task, even when they are just out in the world doing unrelated things. Twenty-one has become semantically connected to alcohol, so on some subconscious level the relationship always exists. \nAh, but 22. This gloriously palindromic time of your life arrives with no strings attached. As an age it is label-free, as a year it is raw and full of potential. As a number it is well-rounded, comfortably divisible and so appropriately represented by two twos. \nBut more importantly, it is older than 21. Older means wiser. And wiser, in my opinion, means infinitely cooler. Why? Because it is much hipper to be "over" something than it is to be in it. Allow me to illustrate.\nOnce upon a time, you might have had one of Billy Ray Cyrus's classic "Achy Breaky Heart" T-shirts. Perhaps it was even a handmade version from a booth at the state fair, giving your T-shirt the element of glitter that no one else's had. This would have made you the pinnacle of this trend. However, it would not have made you as fashionable as the first person who donated their T-shirt to Goodwill and scoffed at the people who were still wearing them. \nThat, my friends, is the power of screaming "passé" in a crowded fad. \nWhen you're 22, you have that power. While younger people still try to gain popularity by speaking loudly of the weekend's drunken exploits, you get to roll your eyes at fellow veterans and say, "Yeah. Whatever." You get to pet that young confused child on the head and authoritatively walk away. \nThis confidence can actually be enjoyed on any given birthday -- even the so-called uneventful ones. So there's really no need to cringe for the person who is not reaching a milestone this year. As thrilling as it may be to become a 16-year-old driver, an 18-year-old pornography buyer or a 21-year-old barhopper, the merriment of a good birthday need not rely on the liberation from an arbitrary legal confine.\nCelebrate, instead, the wisdom you've gained. Party because you're not the naïve x-year-old you once were. When you blow out your candles take pride in their number, because you're one year smarter than somebody else.