When Britney ushered the words, “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman” they bared little-to-no meaning to my life as a six year old girl in 2001. But I sang them anyway, hoping that one day I’d finally understand what she was talking about. Fast forward fourteen years later and that day has finally come. However, my epiphany didn’t bring forth the kind of satisfaction I was expecting.
When I was born on May 7th, 1995, I don’t think my mom realized how much she was putting me at a horrible disadvantage. Though I am ahead of everyone born in the summer and early fall, May is fairly late in the year to celebrate your birthday, especially when it’s the birthday you’ve been dreaming of since you watched your first episode of Jersey Shore. Yes, I’m talking about your 21st, the one night in your entire life it’s fully acceptable to never remember.
Right now, my friends and I are in the awkward, almost-there stage of turning 21. Our nights include being denied at the popular Bloomington bar, getting rejected out to dinner (shout out Mikayla), and being tirelessly questioned at liquor stores. We are too old for the frats but too young for the bars. We are stuck in the middle. Is this what Britney was talking about?
I feel like bouncers can smell our underage blood from a mile away. They take one look at my fake ID, laugh, and tell me to leave. It’s barely worth the hours getting ready to go out when you end up getting publicly shut down at the door. It’s definitely the highlight of their night… and definitely the lowlight of mine. At this point, the best part of my night usually involves my couch, Guy Fieri, and that fire cheesy bread from Domino’s.
The fact that I’m not twenty-one is getting harder and harder to ignore. It’s all over my news feed, it’s all I see on Instagram, it’s taking over SnapChat; it’s everywhere. Turning twenty-one is no longer just a night out with your friends. It’s a full-blown, welcome-to-adulthood extravaganza filled with tiaras, sashes, and shot books. It’s starting to make bachelorette parties look lame.
As everyone else turns the big 2-1, it feels like me and my friends are seemingly staying twenty forever. I mean is it really too much to ask for the government to lower the drinking age? Probably, but hey, our parents could legally drink at eighteen and they turned out alright.
The drinking age definitely causes more harm than it does good. It practically forces underage kids to go underground, behind their parents’ back, and consume alcohol in an irresponsible manner. It’s the most predictable form of teen rebellion. And it’s how college campuses thrive, in complete disregard of the law.
It’s pretty clear legislation against drinking hasn’t worked in the past, so I’m not sure how the government thinks that implementing a twenty-one drinking age is effective. All I know is that my 21st birthday cannot come soon enough. I can’t wait to say goodbye to the nights I spent drinking the alcohol I stole from my parent’s liquor cabinet, farewell to the nights I spent partying in a friend’s basement, so long to the nights I spent getting denied at every bar in town. I cannot wait to be free from the burdensome underage life I’ve lived up until now.
It’s funny because I thought I was becoming a woman at my Bat Mitzvah…. yeah right, what did I know at 13? See you never adolescence, and welcome to a whole new world of adulthood. It really is true: 21, the last birthday you actually look forward to before you start dreading aging.