Birthday blues for Giovanni

Giovanni Gonzales / Campus Focus Editor / The USD Vista

Today is my 22nd birthday and I could not be happier and more scared than I am right now. I woke up this week and confronted the first signs of older age; my first gray hairs. Thankfully, at this point I am not all gray but I am expecting it to happen in the near future, if not by the end of the day. There were not many of them, but they were in the front, taunting me as if they had a mind of their own, planning to make me entirely gray before graduation.

I tried to go about the rest of my day but could not help but think that everyone was staring at my gray hairs. I went to the bathroom wishing that they had magically disappeared.

Unfortunately, the gray hairs remained and it seemed as if they were becoming even more readily visible as the minutes and hours passed by. The recurring thought that my hair could be silver by the time class was finished did not cease.

As I continued to worry, I sensed that a bout of teenage acne was about to hit and not to my surprise, it did. I feel like I am back in middle school with this ridiculous looking acne. Now, not only do I still have acne, but I also have gray hairs on my birthday.

I cannot help but think that my life is falling apart. I know that there is some sort of explanation for the gray hair and acne, but I would prefer to live in ignorance and continue to believe that my world as I know it is falling apart.

Sometimes I wish that I could go back to my blissful years of childhood. The years where everything was simple and I had zero responsibility. The years when a birthday party at McDonald’s or Chuck E. Cheese’s and dinosaur cakes were all that mattered as was being the first kid on your block to get Forbidden Bridge.

Alas, the glory years are merely memories but great ones at that. I realize that even if I am a gray haired, acne prone, 22-year-old, life really is not that bad. Besides, wine gets better with age.

So in my opinion, I am going to become a fine Merlot; it just might take some time.