It’s the answer to life, the universe, and everything, according to Douglas Adams, may he rest his little atheist soul in peace. It’s also an age at which you’re supposed to sort of be a grown up already. In fact, you passed up your last excuse for not being a grown up about a decade ago. You’ve achieved normalcy, whatever that’s ever going to mean for you. Anything you still can’t deal with therefore is entirely your own fault and your own responsibility.
This also happens to be my current age, but if you ask me again I will lie to your face. The rule is you’re supposed to be a grown up by now. Nothing anywhere says you have to like that fact. 42…24…what’s the difference to the emotionally dyslexic?
When you blog daily as I’ve been doing since January, it’s anyone’s guess what might come out once you hit that “new post” button at the end of the day. I believe that way back two paragraphs ago I intended to tie the point into what a strange and strangely decent experience it was for me to go to my high school reunion this weekend. I think I wanted to say something about how we should all be grown up enough by now to be over our petty little high school differences and insecurities. But it is harder than you might think to do that because nothing marks you with self doubt quite like high school.
Then I remembered I wrote about that yesterday. Probably there is a limit to how much a 28 year old grown up is allowed to still be talking about high school.
Besides, figuring out just what the heck grown up means anyway is hard enough.
42 is the answer, Doug Adams said, but we’ve all forgotten the question.
