Reflections on 21

"You turned 21 on Saturday? Now you're completely legal!" my boss said this morning.
"Except to rent a car," I joked.

It can get old when people ask, "do you feel any different?" after a birthday. Of course you don't feel any different, it was just another day passing. It's not because of the day that you grow older, but because of the things that those milestone birthdays allow you to do. Turning 16 isn't momentous until you actually pass your license test. Turning 18 doesn't mean a whole lot until you vote in an election, or sign yourself out of school without a parent signiture (whoa! dream big). The world doesn't change when you turn 21 if you drank every weekend from middle school.

But even for me - the rare, casual, consumer of alcohol - my 21st birthday felt like just another day. It was the bars that changed everything.

I'm only slightly ashamed to admit, as any innocent young thing would be, that being part of the midnight crowd altered my view. Whenever I drove down University Avenue at that time of night, I saw the scantily-clad girls and guys in baseball caps overflowing into the street, and, in my pride, scoffed at their behavior. I considered them lower than myself, because they were spending their evening drunk while I was out ballroom dancing or talking to a friend about God.

Needless to say, I got knocked off my ivory tower and slapped around with the big hand of humility. I knew, of course, that I would enjoy going out with friends; what I didn't expect to realize was that:
1)People at the bars are rarely drunk. Usually just tipsy or buzzed.
2)People who are slightly buzzed (possibly including myself) are a lot of fun to be around and talk to.

Now at the end of the night, I would hate for that fun and excitement to be what fulfills me. Because it doesn't. It's sugary, light, fun - like cotton candy. But you can't subsist on cotton candy. You've got to eat real food. And suddenly, I sound just like Jesus in the gospel of John, chapter 6...

I'm excited, giddy, and altogether astounded that we have the real food of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is one of the things that I love about being Catholic, and a Truth of the Catholic Church that I wholeheartedly believe in, though I can't explain why. Maybe it seems illogical. I don't care. What I have felt, especially over the past few years, in the presence of the Eucharist can't simply be thrown aside. And so, like Peter at the end of this passage, I look to God when things are difficult, when I'm so tired of fighting for my own will, and just say, "Lord, to whom would I go?"

This is it. There is no going back. Not to a time when I decry bar-hopping, and not to a place where I'm not Catholic. This is my present. Now I have to decide what my future will be.

*Exits singing "I have confidence in sunshine! I have confidence in rain!...*