Twenty-Three

A couple of weeks ago I had my twenty-third birthday. Twenty-three always seemed like an important age to me, far more than 21 or 18 or 30 or [take your pick]. I'm not sure why, but maybe it had something to do with the plans I had for myself growing up.
Life dreams were a big thing for me. It wasn't the career so much that I obsessed about. I've known ever since I was about 5 that I've wanted to teach and write for a living. (To clarify: Once, for about a month, I wanted to be a virtuoso violinist, but then I realized I lacked the technical ability or the ambition. And then there was my constant fascination with being a spy. It had nothing to do with an interest in gadgetry or adventure; I just have always wanted the balance of information to tip on my side). Anyway, my life goals, then, were often time and location goals.

From the ages of 10-16 (circa), my life plan looked like this.
Graduate from high school one year early.
Go to college at 17
Graduate at 20
Go to grad school at 21* (same year as graduation; it's how my birthday falls), and finish the summer before I turn 23.

Ah, 23. What a magical number you were.

Somewhere in the middle of high school I decided I wasn't going college a year early. I didn't even want to. So the life plan got pushed back a little. But that was okay, I'd still be halfway done with my graduate program, and looking out for the career of my life.

Then, the summer before my freshman year in college, I decided to go through college attempting two majors. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't going to be shoving that into four years. Four and a half years was the smallest amount of time I could manage, so I knew I was going to graduate a semester before I turned twenty-three.

That's okay, I told myself, graduating from college is an epochal moment, and twenty-five is not a bad age to finish a first masters. Then there's a doctorate, of course, but that's the kind of schooling appropriate at any age.

And then somewhere in the last year or two of my college education, I decided that I wanted to travel more, see the world, and experience new cultures. The masters program could wait until I got back.

So here I am, in Saipan, having just graduated from college, teaching English to a bunch of Chinese, Chamorro, and Korean students, (oh yeah, and one Russian), with no immediate plans for a graduate program, and with a frequently postponed life plan.

But that's okay. I've always like the number 27, and that seems like a great age to finish a graduate program.



*At Oxford; Balliol, to be specific, where I could meet the love of my high-school life, Peter Wimsey.