The Age Calculator

A dear and brilliant friend of mine turns 22 today. In a rare lull in our conversation yesterday I asked her, awkwardly and out of obligation, how it felt to be 22? Her response was, as always, wise and true.

Like me, and I assume many of you, she stated that she had never really gotten birthdays because they didn't make her feel any different. What? Now I'm 22? great. It's still only been 1 day since yesterday and nothing besides a bar tender's relative perception of my age according to my ID seems to be different. All the big things have stayed the same. So we began talking about all of the things that do contribute to your age, since numbers are so vividly useless. Things like the number of car crashes you've been in, how many times you've lost your job, how often you've moved, how many funerals you've attended, on and on. I realize now that these are mostly negative things. But it got me thinking...how do I measure how old I feel? How should we measure that? So here are some of my thoughts, and I'd love to hear yours! Please comment with any additions, logical or illogical, strange and/or beautiful. I'd love to hear.

Measure: Car Altercations
My Count: 7
Explanation: Tickets. Accidents. Fender Benders. They cost you money and they ruin your day. This is probably the greatest cause of concrete stress in my life. I'm not even that bad of a driver. I follow the laws of the road. I don't speed too badly. I maintain reasonable distances between vehicles and I obey all posted signs. And yet, some combination of my compromised vision and undiagnosed attention disorder have left me with an impossible high count of 7. I think the stress of these moments alone would put them as the most ageing moments of my life, but then there's residual anxiety too! I really just don't love driving. And that's where we're at.

Measure: Stressful Seemingly Life Altering Decisions
My Count: 3
Explanation: I think this is probably the most obvious thing on the list. But whenever you're asking the question "How will this affect the person I want to become?" you know it's a trying decision process. It ages you, but when you make the right choice it also holds the potential to keep you young. So good luck with those.


Measure: Cavities
My Count: I've lost count. 6 maybe?
Explanation: This is not a reflection of bad oral hygiene. I'm a mouth breather, particularly at night. There's only so much I can do. More than any other reason, cavities are on the list because they make me feel dumb. Like, really? You couldn't even brush your teeth well? And because they make me feel immature, not young, just immature. Which is really just the worst combination.


Measure: Times out of the country
My Count: 6?
Explanation: I didn't say countries visited or new cities seen because I wanted to address the emotional and physical preparation of packing your bags, getting on a plane, and flinging yourself warp speed into the unknown. I'm whole heartedly invested in the benefits of travel, for the psyche and the soul, so while this type of travel does the power to age and de-age, I think it actually has the most positive effect. You feel younger at heart but you get more mature. Travel. Just do it.


Measure: Graduations Attended
My Count: 7

Explanation: This is not just about how many time you've graduated, but about how many times those closest to you have given you the opportunity to endure hours of pomp and circumstance. Not only do you lose life matter by making it through these endless ceremonies and their accompanying events, but graduations are a convenient reminder that as we move forward and accomplish more we up the anty. When we have more there's more to lose, more to live up to. #pressure #dontevenworryaboutit #stressisageing

Measure: Cups of Coffee
My Count: 7,302,418 (estimate)

Explanation: For me a cup of coffee is part of a daily routine but it's also a social centerpiece. Let's go grab coffee anyone? This age marker is an indicator of how much time has passed, just because I'm always drinking coffee, and it suggests how many times I've shared a beautiful conversation, or gone adventuring to find some drip in a foreign country, or cuddled up against a window and been equally stimulated by the words on the pages in front of me as the newly ingested caffeine coursing through my veins. Coffee is my drug, social lubricant, energizer of choice.

Measure: Road Trips
My Count: 5

Explanation: I think road trips make us older and younger all at once. They remind us of the excitement of adventure, the joy of the unknown, and they also provide ample time to get lost inside ourselves and grow and move forward more maturely, older and wiser. I've done a few short trips with my mom when I was visiting colleges and a few family vacations on the eastern sea board, but the bigest and best has yet to come. After graduation I'm driving from Los Angeles to New York with mi hermana. @ weeks. A ton of states. Lots of danger-opportunities. Ageing will abound. But if we have to get older, isn't it nice to do it with someone?

Measure: Funerals Attended
My Count: 2

Explanation: Funerals are a big deal. They're upsetting and unsettling and from my perspective the worst part is that it's impossible to offer any comfort to those who have just experienced the greatest loss. I think funerals remind us that we're moving up the list, and we have to make the most of everything while we're still on this side of the grass. Whatever their effect on you, they're still affecting.

Measure: Weddings Attended
My Count: 4

Explanation: Most of those that I'm listing were before I was 7. This one is actually a shout out to one of my favorite people, who is sharing her vows at the end of the summer. I'm SO excited for her wedding. To share in this exciting moment for her, to spend time with friends, to eat, drink, and be merry, all sounds incredible. And while I suspect that 7 weddings from now my emotions may turn bitter, I maintain that I think weddings are going to populate the next decade of my life and are going to present frequent and easy ways to gauge where I'm at in life. Introspection, in my opinion, has a tendency to slide you towards the old end of the age spectrum.

Measure: Glasses of Wine
My Count: Infinite

Explanation: This is my favorite way to measure my age. Glasses of wine are similar to cups of coffee in that I've had them everywhere, with everyone, and in every emotional state possible. No drink has punctuated the ups and downs of my life so aptly. And with this one I'm really not sure if it makes me feel older or younger, but either way it makes me feel happier, more content, and regardless of how I measure my age, I can't really see that being a bad thing.