Pictures from my birthday dinner at Mie N Yu.
You celebrate turning 22 with a killer party on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Have a lot of fun, but look back on the greasy-haired pictures and cringe - why didn't you wash your hair that day!? Say goodbye to your love from 17-22 forever (but escape to Vegas for a last-hurrah weekend a few months later with him anyway). You stop breathing, so you rebound. Rebound again. Rebound again, again. And then you're at least a little distracted, and can breathe again, a little. Meanwhile, significantly enhance your little resume by completing an amazing internship at the Guggenheim, which will give you a lot of art world street cred and some really great filing skills. Then it's the night before your last day of college, and the paper due at midnight is only 1/3 done, and then suddenly it's 3 a.m., and you're only 2/3 done, then somehow it's the next morning, and you turn the paper in, and you go to your last class, and then it's over, and you tell the strangers in the elevator, "That was my last class of college," in an elevator appropriate voice, but really you want to SCREAM it....
A few weeks later you march across a stage in a light-blue gown that makes you look tan, which you quite appreciate, and they hand you a paper that reads, "You did it! Our bad for the sleepless nights you spent cramped up in Butler Library and the incomprehensible TAs and the occasional vermin you found in your dorms and for admitting that one boy from whom you're still recovering and for preventing you from learning French by only having classes that took place at 9 a.m. on Friday mornings which you obviously refused to attend...our bad. But you did it. In fact, you did it rather well and only gained a little weight throughout the whole ordeal, and you can now waltz around the world knowing that you graduated from an Ivy League institution. You win. You did it." Or it may say something else, but you'll never know, as you never took Latin. That day you had woken up an unemployed undergraduate, but, after receiving a job offer in the mail, you go to bed a graduate of Columbia University and a future employee of the Smithsonian Institution.
Six weeks later you move to Washington, D.C., nearly inconsolable with woe and self-pity. You don't want to leave New York. You don't want to leave your friends. You don't want to leave the Strand or Fifth Avenue or the Met or Central Park or that one little hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant on 32nd Street. But leave them all you do, because something inside you whispers "Go!" (and you know better than to ignore it). On the Fourth of July on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, your life changes, but you won't realize it until months later.
The next several months are filled with firsts: First apartment. (love) First time living with Mormon girls. (weird) First real paycheck. (sweet) First bills. (@#$*) First time all your friends are Mormon. (boring) First antique purchase. (baller) First time living in the suburbs. (gross) First grown-up relationship. (scary) You learn and change and grow, and you develop a healthy love/hate for your new life, with less hate and more love than you'd anticipated or wanted.
After New Year's you take a few difficult steps as you try to become a little more of whoever you're going to be. These include applying to and getting accepted into two graduate programs in the History of Decorative Arts, which will lead you further into the uncertain arts world but closer to your passions and inspirations. You love a boy, but you leave a boy, and then you buy your first antique book and your first Kate Spade purse. You also take to twirling. And meltdowns. A lot of meltdowns. Uncertainty and worry, but also some peace.
By the time you turn 23, you're a different person than the 22 year old you, and lightyears away from from the 21 year old you (thank GOODNESS). You still don't wash your hair every day. You still forget to ask people about their day, and you still eat like a linebacker. You still judge people based on where they went to school, you still wear too much eye makeup, and you still fall asleep in movies. You still don't like talking to strangers or talking at all. But you're also kinder. You read your scriptures everyday. You love more and better, and you're more thoughtful. You're gentler, more communicative, and more inclusive. And you value family more, especially Mom.
You celebrate 23 with parties, friends, and loves, and you're happy.
The end.
I know this birthday post is almost a month late. Whatever. My blog.
