Twenty-four

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

lost and found
by Jeneen R. Garcia
published in December 2003


In commemoration of the fourth year anniversary of lost & found, I am posting the eight essays that were published pre-Multiply. As it happens, these essays are also among my favorites so far :)

When I was four years old, I knew exactly what my future self looked like: twenty-something and striding confidently in a power suit, breezing through the world, totally unfaze-able. Even then I knew I wanted to be independent, career-minded, everything that epitomized the “working girl” motif of the 80’s.

Twenty-four was the ultimate grown-up age. When you’re four years old, twenty-four sounds like a good time to settle down, get married and be a perfect mother to three adorable kids, all the while holding that top position in a Fortune 500 company.

I don’t know why my standards demanded that Adulthood come so early. Maybe it was growing up as an eldest kid mostly around adults. Maybe it was having a mother who married at 18. But having passed that age without a shadow of a boyfriend, I started to have doubts I would grow up on time.

Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three came and went, and I still found myself abhorring heels and suits. I still hopped gleefully from seesaw to swing at playgrounds. Sure I did my own grocery, but for breakfast I would buy Cerelac (Wheat-Banana) and cereal with free glow-in-the-dark stickers.

Despite the apparent stagnation, I kept that four-year old’s vision in a corner of my mind. As if by simply turning twenty-four, I could still be transformed into my childhood memory of the future.

A week and a half ago I finally hit the grown-up age. When I woke up, I was still unmarried, childless, and had basically the same wardrobe I had in college. Nope, there weren’t any magical puffs of smoke. My mother called that day, and I told her about the soul-searching I had done in the weeks before my birthday.

“I’ve decided to be true to myself,” I said in conclusion, “no matter what.” No more pretending to be mature and sophisticated and normal. So what if I still like splashing around in the rain and talking to cats and sitting up on a tree for a whole afternoon? So what if I’ll hopelessly be eating Cerelac until the day I die? It’s more nutritious than the fried junk I usually eat for dinner.

She laughed, extremely amused at her little girl telling her how to deal with life. “You’ve really grown up,” she said, at last, “Some people don’t realize those things until they’re fifty.”

In a roundabout way, I had still met my deadline. I grew up when I finally stopped searching for the someone I had yet to become.

I used to flinch at being thought to be younger than my age. I took it as a compliment when someone mistook me to be five, eight years older. I thought that meant I seemed to know what I was doing; only later did I realize it could have been the eye bags and the too-serious face.

Being twenty-four has made me wisen up. I’m independent, living alone, with no plans to get married or stay put in one place, still clueless, stumbling, mostly unfaze-able (I hope), giddy about the future, unsure of what it will bring, but grateful (at last!) to have found my right age.

That four-year old had been right about twenty-four all along.