The First Big Number

 In a week I'll turn 21. This, even to me, seems crazy.

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--

a kind of mumps of the psyche,

a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

I can't help but think that on that Thursday, a normal day to most everyone on earth, will be the day I am actually an adult. Logically, of course, this is completely ridiculous.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit. 
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible 
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

In nearly every way, I'm already and adult. I'm in college and living on my own. I pay rent and buy groceries. Still, there's this feeling that this year, when that digit finally spins all the way around from 0 to 1, I will suddenly feel adult.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the lat afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house, 
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today, 
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

Will my heart suddenly break more for others? Should I take on more responsibility? Will I be held more accountable for my actions and for my impact as a citizen of the world?

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

Maybe this is something everyone feels, or maybe it's unique to me, but I can't shake this feeling. On your birthday everyone always asks if you feel different. In the past my answer has been no. This time, it feels like life as I know it will be different in 7 short days.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, 
I skin my knees. I bleed.




Poem: On Turning Ten by Billy Collins