thirty-two

in two days, i will be 32 years old. besides the obvious none-of-us-thought-that-would-happen issue, there are other implications that are cause for reflection. being 32 years old makes me now the same age as many of my high school teachers and coaches were then. i had this idea 17 years ago that they were all real grow-ups who had crossed over some mysterious divide and into a realm that i would one day come to call home. i remember no such crossover and i have seen no such realm. now we all know that it is no surprise that i have not accomplished these things, but i am mostly talking about my peers and friends. none of them seem to have elevated into a plane of existence that is qualitatively different from the one we have all known since childhood. this causes me to think back on those people whom i suspect i had miscast in my perception as real grown-ups. for example, one of them was a karaoke queen. so i look at my friend amanda who is only a bit younger than i am who also adores the ministage and microphone. this points to the obvious major issue that karaoke has long outlasted any reasonable time frame and might in fact be here to stay, but that is a panic issue for another day. i watch amanda singing her precious little heart out "OOOO baby do you know what that's worth? we'll make heaven a place on earth, they say in heaven, love comes first, we'll make heaven a place on earth." she's having a great time and everyone is genuinely enjoying her performance and her delightful demeanor. and she is shit-faced. was my karaoke queen teacher leaving the stage to stumble over to her bar stool and say, "i am a little, hiccup, drunk. hey! let's go dance on that pole." did her friends have to pull and hold her arms to keep her from climbing up to dance on the top of the bar while someone else sang a lame-ass duet from grease? it is entirely possible, isn't it?

so, does anyone ever grow up? is it reserved for only a select few who can handle the responsibility? i am so clearly not one of those people. so does this mean that i will forever be one atomic smurf or caribou lou shot away from acting like a 19-year-old coyote? i can't even decide if this is good news or bad news. but either way, in two days i am chronologically 32 years old. and now that i have outlived all expectations, i think i'll devote my adult life to building a time machine so i can go back and make up for some seriously lost and wasted time. and i will definitely peek in on those karaoke contests in 1991. i have to know.