I had a poignant moment the other day. Three in fact. The first was I noticed some leaves spiraling upward like glowing embers from a fire and realized that autumn is basically built for similes and metaphors. But we discussed this last week.
The second was how much I like tractors, which I realized as I watched this big CAT tear apart a building on campus. It was so cool! There was actually a crowd of people watching the pure demolition, the majestic power of the claw knocking down heavy concrete and brick walls that you just don't see everyday. When I was a kid I used to play in the backyard with tractors and dump trucks and the like. They were my first "favorite toys". My dad and I used to make aqueducts and mud quarries and get nice and dirty just playing for hours under the lemon and orange trees. I think that was before my sister and maybe even my brother was born.
Which brings me to my third realization: I turn 25 this week. This is no surprise. Age changes occur every year. In some sense, its a day like any other. I have work, class, and a presentation, so it's definitely not going to be a big party or fiesta. I have a presentation the day after too, so no late night shenanigans. My birthday will be a workday.
Normally, I think this would bother me. I've downplayed my birthday for years now, but I still tried to make the day itself something special, a day just for me. It is a special day. It's the celebration of life. The celebration of being a son, a brother, a friend, and a person doing his part in this world. That is not to be belittle. So I will celebrate. But I don't have to celebrate on the actual day. I should celebrate EVERY day. Everyday take an appreciation for the gifts I have received, the blessings, the hardships that have made me a stronger, better person, and the hope that tomorrow and the day after will see new growth, new experiences and hopefully many more birthdays to come. And with Thanksgiving around the corner, as it always is for my birthday, it is important for me to remember to be thankful for everything that makes a birthday meaningful.
I will celebrate when I go home this week. It's my first trip to California since September. I'll get to see my siblings, my parents and my extended family. I'll also spend the first night in my old apartment with Brock and Clark and probably others. I will then head to the University to see the old Summercamp crew. SOMEHOW I will get from University to home. Maybe I'll be able to talk my sister into retrieving me (Eh Cheeky Monkey?) though I think Pokeboss also offered me a lift, which will bring our friendship full circle since I took her home during our first weeks on staff together. I'm really excited to be back and can't imagine it will be in just two day, but I honestly am not thinking about it very much. Gotta get to those two days first. Then I can breath. And of course do the mountain of work that won't vanish in California.
So, taking one liberty for myself, in honor of this milestone, quarter of a century of life, and in hopes to a future of greater wisdom, maturity, but never losing my boyish good looks (ha!) and childlike, carefree attitude, I present my top 25. This is NOT supposed to be one of those Facebook chain posts. Instead, I will go through each year of my life and highlight a top event or two that I remember or associate with that year. I am always really reflective around my birthday, and this is one way that it will play out. You may not be terribly interested in this, but all I have to say is, It's my birthday, I'll do what I want!
Age 1: Birth. Kinda a big deal. I don't remember it. I just know that I was a financial challenge because my dad had been laid off a few months beforehand. To this day I have been very conscious of costing my parents money. I am so thankful for the sacrifices they continually make for me, starting with day 1.
Age 2: I was told that I pretty much skipped crawling and went straight to walking. I get my thirst for independence started early. We also moved in my first house, where most of my childhood memories were formed.
Age 3: I'm pretty sure I was really active and needed lots of means to channel my energies. One of my earliest memories is being in a Mommy and me preschool-like class. I remember climbing a tree, which would be a consistent them in my life until about age... 25 or so.
Age 4: At this point, I now had a brother, which is another really early memory of mine: when we got him from the hospital. I was also in pre-school now and my first best friends were named Michelle, Ashley and a boy whose name I cannot at this time remember. I want to say Simon, but I think that's just the Chipmunks. I know the bully from that year turned out to be a good friend, and his name was Tino. BTW this is some serious 90s nostalgia at this point (which we probably think of as the 80s too). I was super into He Man (though I can't remember an episode), Ninja Turtles, and about to hit X-Men and Power Rangers obsessions.
Age 5: Kindergarten! I met several of my closest friends this year. Though many are not recorded here in this blog, I do stay in touch with these people, who I spent the next 9 years with at Catholic School. One particular name of note: Spam Boa. Yup this birthday marks 20 years of friendship! Happy anniversary? Let's not also forget a small little detail (haha short jokes)... my baby sister was born! Cheeky Monkey was the first thing I remember consciously praying for. I had a brother but wanted a sister too. God granted me that wish, though I wanted to name her Michelle, my parents opted to give at least one of us an ethnic name. Yup. Cheeky is my great grandmothers name. Well... You know what I mean!
Age 6: I need to point out that, since I am one of the older kids in my class, age 6 was actually more of kindergarten than first grade. So the ages don't quite line up perfectly. I remember really enjoying first grade. One particular memory is singing A Whole New World as a class. This was also where I really became an avid reader and writer. I had already written an illustrated several stories at this point. I think I still have them...
Age 7: First and second grade was all about action figures, boys vs girls, kickball and dinosaurs. In the second grade, I had more dinosaurs memorized than most of the college students in the dinosaurs class at University. I begged my dad to let me see Jurassic Park, but he said it was too scary. Fortunately, Tia Favorita was much kinda and she let me watch it with her when we used to spend the night at her apartment. Those were really awesome times and we loved those getaways. That was probably one of the last times it was just me and her for a weekend. Good times.
Age 8: There is a great picture of me going down Splash Mountain with my mom at Disneyland from this time. I know it was at this point because I did a show and tell in school with where I recreated Splash Mountain with my Hot Wheels. I was such a nerd! My parents used to take us every other year to Disneyland, partly so we wouldn't be burned out and partly cuz it was and is really expensive.
Age 9: This is probably one of my favorite years in life. I got a bike and it'd ride around the neighborhood for hours. There was a true sense of freedom with you had your own transportation. Other times in my life that replicated the freedom I associate with my bike: Getting my driver's license, going to college, and moving to Ohio. So few and far in between. This also was my last year playing Little League baseball, a very formative time in my life and to this day I love the sport, even though I was never competitive when I played it at that age. That was also the only time I ever went by Jimmy. It was fine on the team, but never EVER again.
Age 10: I associate this age with the 4th grade. This year I started reading Animorphs, which propelled me to levels of book reading never before seen! Scholastic Books was my favorite company and I loved it when my mom would splurge on books for me. This year, I had a dream that we would travel to every Mission in California, since that's what we studied in school. My parents took me to one, but that was cool too.
Age 11: I met a lot of new friends this year. We were getting older and approaching the middle school years. I was the straight A teacher's pet student and did not know it. I also wrote my first poems in 5th grade. One of them was published in a contest and I won my mom some amethyst earrings. I was destined to be an English major from then on.
Age 12: 6th grade may have been my favorite year ever. Spam Boa and I finally had class together again (we hadn't since 3rd grade). We had the best teacher, who did things like an ongoing Greek Olympics or a sleepover in an aquarium, or mummifying chickens or teaching us Scripture through puppets. It was really great. I also started writing short stories and reading books like Redwall. Also, I had been in love with video games for a long time, and even bought my cousin's old NES. But then we got an N64 and went to new levels of gaming that opened a whole new world for me.
Age 13: I think back on 7th grade and don't have as many fond memories. There were fights in schools, friendships changed, and those awkward middle schools were in full effect. Two particular memories: Three Way Calling. Yes these were the days before cells and texting. The days of AIM. And the days where you could make a big phone chain if one person three way called the next who three way called the next etc. etc. We used to have like 7 or 8 people on the phone. Good times. I also began playing Starcraft and Diablo and learned about internet gaming. This was important because I started learning about computers and really using them for all their capabilities, not just a few games here and there, but for communication, searching and the like. This is where I joined the technology generation.
Age 14: I was co-class president this year. 8th grade was great. School dances, lots of end of the year stuff. Lifetime friendships were beginning to change. This was the big breakup of friends for the last 9 years. Fortunately, most of us went to the same high school. At this point, I was an established writer. One project had me make a portfolio. I read my favorite book of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird, and my first Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing. I was also avoiding the bandwagon Harry Potter series to read the more intense and ambitious Wheel of Time. I'm one of maybe two people I know who have read all of them (each of the 13 are about 900 pages and the last one comes out next year!!) I did eventually read Harry Potter, but not til high school. This was also my first real experiences with social justice issues and learning about topics like the Armenia Genocide, The Tuskegee Airmen, the Cambodian Genocide, of course the Holocaust. I studied Gandhi and his work in India. We went to a museum about these tragedies and read books on Japanese Internment. We learned some really powerful things that year.
Age 15: High School. I was 15 when Sept 11 happened. I remember being woken up by my dad and watching the stuff on the news with Spam Boa and another friend and my parents. It was surreal. That was also the year I learned to drive and effectively my last year in the Boy Scouts which I'd done for about 5 years. I still peaked in but lost interest as I got more involved in high school. Also, I would like to pay homage to Sr. Marie, the most terrifying teacher I ever had. And one of the best.
Age 16: Besides a license (at the end of sophomore year), I spent my first two years of high school doing cross country and track. It's where I met friends like Jabbertalky, my first new friend in HS. He ran all four years and since I had gotten involved in yearbook, I would still go to a lot of meets. I also met my favorite teacher of all time in World History. I also got confirmed this year. I knew it was a big deal, but I did not recognize how much my life would change from that decision to stay Catholic. I signed up to be a young adult leader and began going to retreats. Powerful, transforming retreats. I began learning about my faith in ways the classes never fully captured. Steubenville will always stand out in my mind as a defining moment in my Catholic journey.
Age 17: Another big year. My group of friends had changed as I got more involved in ASB. This was my best year of classes, with subjects like British Literature with Brother, Ethics, US History, Algebra II (hardest but best math class ever) and Chemistry (hard but often fun). Besides meeting friends like Mama G and Ms Peacelove, I also had my first girlfriend and hundreds of grand memories at dances, parties, and hangouts. I was always the good kid and look back on high school with no regrets, which in and of itself is a huge blessing.
Age 18: Also a great year. Senior year of high school. Got into my dream school, loved most of my classes and ended my career there right. The summer of parties followed with a graduation party every day it seemed. We had a huge, good group of friends (including Bridges at this point) and even had one party where we all swapped CDs of our favorite songs, many of which I still listen to on my computer.
15 of us ended up at University together where we started a grand new journey. This was where I met the like of Brock, Alejandro, RC Tequila, Sunshine Knives, Clark, Nemesis and Penny (in that order no less). There were plenty of other good friends and one memory in particular is our 80s Dance Party, which I've recounted before but I think captures first year really well. Our family was born and with additions like Kareem, Jordan and AVP among others it kept growing.
Age 19: As I started second year (in which I also turned 20) I became much more involved in ResLife. This year ended with me meeting Dungeon Daddy and El Bandito. Who would have thought how much my college career would shift when El Bandito named me External Vice President. I haven't mentioned music much. In HS I was really into Classic Rock and I also had a large religious music collection from various retreats. At this point, I got my first iPod and subsequently would play music on my laptop more too. I remember Brock listening to my religious songs and being, actually I liked that one play it again. haha Random Roomie Memory!
Age 20: At this age, I became single again. Which is fine because I was super involved in school and my gf went to a different school. I lived in a building with Steakhouse, Tenshi, Spotty Sister, and Micki Granger. I also was good friends with P-Diddy at this point and by this age's end would have met Heavy Spy and Mother Mapster.
Age 21: But it wasn't until this year that we all became the second "family" I allude to in my cast of characters. I had my first drink when Mother Mapster, P-Diddy and El Bandito blindfolded me and took me to P-Diddy's room for a few shots of pretty nice Vox vodka. It wasn't as bad a taste as I thought but chasing it with Dr. Pepper sucked. That year was a really great college year, with awesome road trips, crazy fun alcohol stories, and perhaps the best summer of my life living on campus with all my friends and not having school hanging over our heads.
Age 22: Whew this is taking longer than I thought. If only I were so dedicated to my paper writing. Graduation and end of the year festivities were awesome. I had really good friends in Dr. Beeker Flipz, Math Magician and Yellow Piggy. I also ended my RA career and began my role in Summercamp.
Age 23: This was probably the hardest year of my life. I know you can't really see the themes underlying some of these brief snippets of life, but for one thing, religion was less and less common. At this point my best friend had moved several states away, I had a kinda rough breakup with Tenshi (though we did get back together), I was out of school for the first time since age 2 and trying at a new career as an entry level employee in a department going through significant identity changes. Oh, and I was DEAD BROKE because I had moved and moving and rent coming in before paychecks do wipes you out. I did start working for Naysayer and later Santa Claus, which helped my financial and professional woes. And things got better like they always do. And I knew I had to go through stuff like that. Welcome to the real world. But that didn't make it fun.
Age 24: This my most recent year, was for the most part great. Summercamp was in full force with the likes of Pokeboss, Red Button, Captain Peanut, Pandita, Nobel Dancer, King Wrangler and the like. It was a great year at work, I really figured out what I wanted, not just professionally but next steps which was grad school. I got into OSU and took the leap for a completely different life. Not without some resistance. But I was working on my faith life more and God gave me a clear sign of where to go next. And I began traveling, with England, Ireland and Italy under my belt now. So here I am.
Age 25: What's next? Well I have a good group of friends in Dandy Woo, Powder Climber, Tall Bear and many others in my cohort. Tenshi and I are no longer together, which is hard at times, as is being away from most of my past friends. Still, that Fitzgerald article I referred to last week talked about the best things in life can only really be achieve after 25 years. So who knows what's next. After school and job, I have that other dream that's starting to creep in more often now... family. I'm a long way from there, but just as you can see, the people in my life have shaped every year of my life, I think the next 25 years will be shaped by the family I began forming of my own. Today was the last Sunday of the Church year. Next week, there will be many changes in the Mass. I think its fitting that a milestone birthday falls right at this point. Things they be a changin' and the future is going to be exciting. But first, there's whole grad school thing. Back to paper writing!
-James
Listening to: Soul to Squeeze Red Hot Chili Peppers. It seems to be my theme this week, not sure why. I also have a 25 song playlist. Maybe I'll list the songs there next time.
Playing: Too much League of Legends, not enough school work. Spam Boa only things I'm kinda of terrible now. Improvement!
Reading: The Bible. Not sometimes I do nearly enough, but since this one is blessed by the pope, I've been making more of a point. Plus, I went to Theology on Tap, a grad school gathering to talk theology and have drinks. We unpacked the changes coming to the Creed. So I needed some Bible thumping for some context. Good times. I'm really going to make it a point that these next 25 years have a good God focus underneath everything.
great post JT! i enjoyed reading this one
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