On the day before my 8th birthday, I rolled up into a ball on my bed and cried hysterically because I wasn’t going to be 7 anymore and there was nothing I could do about it. (I guess I really liked being 7, but I can’t account for it now.) My mom told me that it would be ok, that soon all my friends would turn 8 and we could all be 8 together; and that she had really enjoyed her 8th year, it was one of her favorite years in her childhood. This helped me.
I was born mid-morning on Thanksgiving. I share my birthday with Harpo Marx, Billy The Kid, Boris Karloff, Miley Cyrus, Chris Hardwick, and our 14th president Franklin Pierce. I was born exactly 2 weeks after the Berlin Wall fell.
In my family we lump all the aunt/grandchild birthdays into one monthly party at my grandma’s house, so all the June-August birthdays or all the January birthdays will be compressed into one shindig, and each gets their own cake and each gets their own presents. I was born on Thanksgiving, and so my birthday was always celebrated when we went up to grandma’s on Thanksgiving day. We’d have a big turkey dinner, and then we’d have cake and presents. I’ve never told my parents this, but until I was in the 2nd grade I thought that my birthday WAS Thanksgiving, and it, too, shifted around from year to year. I mean, I absolutely knew that I was born on November 23rd, but when you’re ever asked your birthday, they usually ask for the year too, and in 1989 Thanksgiving fell on November 23rd.
My dad used to tell me that “the whole Thanksgiving thing” was kind of dying out, and year after year people would sit around the turkey going “well, this is lame, what are we supposed to be thankful for?” But then I was born, and everyone went “MOLLY’S HERE!” and Thanksgiving was saved.
I still don’t really know where I sit on the subject of age, exactly. I heartily subscribe to the “age is just a number” principle, but I’m also fascinated by the half+7 rule of non-creepy dating. My friend Leslie said that I’m a score old, which made me feel REALLY old. Paul & Storm mentioned once that some people were incredulous that I was “only 19.”
I spent the last day of my 19th year watching New Moon (which life is too short to even talk about) with my floormates, and then sleeping to try and get New Moon off my palate. I will close it out by finishing a paper about Ben Franklin’s “The Speech of Polly Baker” and eating Smarties and Snapple. This paper is due in my 10:00 AM American Literature class, and I was born at 9:59 AM… There’s some meaning to be inferred there, but I don’t know what it is.
The idea of turning 20 freaks me out, moreso than the idea of turning 21. I spent Saturday in Seattle, and at the end of the day my back hurt from carrying my uke and my books and CDs, and so I crashed on my bed as soon as I got back to my room. I was laying there with my legs hanging off the side of my tiny dorm bed, both my shoes on, and the bottom of my pants still wet from puddles — when a thought hit me, and compelled me to roll out of bed and zombie-walk across the hall to my friend Lyanna’s room.
“I’ve been thinking this whole time, ‘Oh, last day I’ll be 19, on Monday I’ll be a different age, how weird,’” I said to her, “but it never occurred to me that tomorrow is the last day of my teenage years. It’s my last day as a teenager.”
She nodded, “According to my calculations, yeah.” I stood there for a moment, letting the idea steep in my head.
“I feel like I need to go start on some wacky teen movie romp, you know? Like, I have to go on some legendary hilarious sexy one-night-only hijinks, and then Snag My Dream Guy, or SOMETHING. It’s my last day as a teenager, I feel like I have to make it count.” Lyanna shrugged.
“Well, we got you a cake.”
“…I like cake.”
Happy Birthday! I’m thankful for having recently learned about you – you’ve quickly become one of my favorite internet people. Love hearing from you!
Well Molly here we are again. on the eve of a birthday, which has so much significance, and yet the world keeps spinning. Papers due in the morning (Pulling an all nighter right now), people to see, and business to take care of, but as a twenty year old turning 21 in a month. yes it is sad to see a chapter in life end ( especially the cool childhood chapters) but as all good stories go, the next chapter is just as exciting, with even more adventures and many more fond memories yet to be made. That is all I got in me at this time of morning, I hope you have a very Happy Birthday
Happy birthday!
It always makes me feel really old when I realise I’m more than a quarter of a century old. :/
Happy Birthday. [starts Winamp with your songs]
Happy birthday, love! Keep up the good work- the internet is better for you being in it, and that’s the truth.
Ha, got here from Paul and Storm via twitter. I’m 43 and in no way would want to diminish the flip from teen to 20. I remember it fondly. I approached it with trepidation too. You’re doing just fine.
Hey, I’m was born Thanksgiving morning, too! The 28th, 1985. Thanksgiving = birthday time. I know how it is.
Happy Birthday Molly,
You know, turning 20 wigged me out a little, too. I do miss those years a bit. But the first 8 years of my 30′s have been pretty cool too, so can’t complain.
Thanks for bringing a little light to the world via YouTube. Keep rockin’!
happy birthday molly! you are awesome. hope you have a great day!
Happy birthday Molly! Hope you have a great day!
Happy B-day!
I would say that the 20′s are just like the teen years but… they aren’t.
Oh, and if you think the anticipation/anxiety for turning 20 get’s better at turning 21… it get’s worse ever year. Heck, I’m 24 and the very idea of 25 creeps me out. How could I already have lived a third of my projected life?
*siiiigh*
Well, anyways, Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday!
Aww. When I turned 20, my friends found me crying in my dorm room with toilet paper because I had cried so much I ran out and had to steal a roll from from the bathroom — which was hard, because there’s a padlock and I had to find a broken one.
Then they took me outside and we toilet papered a tree.
Happy Birthday! Welcome to the 20′s. You should find that they are pretty awesome too.
Have a good one!
Everyone wants to be younger or older than they are. The 20s have been pretty great for me so far (turning 27 on 12/2!) and I think you’ll get a kick out of ‘em. Look at it this way: in one more year you’ll be able to perform in bars! Increased venue options can only be a good thing.
Wait, you were only 19? o.O That’s pretty awesome, and makes me reflect a little sadly: What was I doing at 19? Definitely not becoming famous on a ukulele, that’s what.
Congrats on leaving the teen-years behind, and double-congrats on cake. You can’t go wrong with cake.
It’s always sad to have one period in your life come to a close, but the next one is just as exciting and new. You’re going to have a blast. Happy Birthday!
Speaking to having a paper due on the day: I turned 21 in the middle of exam week. Big film class paper due the next day, but I worked on it all morning (taking a break to go to the liquor store; almost didn’t even get carded!) specifically so I could get drunk that night. Middle-of-exam-week partying: it was pretty neat.
So for your birthday, I think I’ll buy your CD. For mine (a fortnight from Thanksgiving), you can let me buy your CD.
HAPPY BITHDAY!
I have found that as you get older birthdays get longer. They are spread across several days because you celebrate with your family, then with old friends, then with college friends, then with online friends and so on as you accumulate different cliques.
Plus the internet means you get 10 happy birthday messages from each person. I have said happy birthday on skype, twitter, facebook and on your blog now. Ok that is more like… 4… but with the obligatory rule of “real number times two plus one for examples” it is all good.
Have a good one. Don’t worry – just do all the teenage stuff in your twenties but do it all with ‘irony’.
Love.
Happy birthday from a nearly 41 yo, who vaguely remembers 20.
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Happy birthday to someone who shares a birthday with Miley Cyrus, from someone who shares a birthday with Lindsay Lohan. I’m so embarrassed that I know that.
You should write a post later telling what presents you got. For my 20th I got a watch. I still wear it every day, and the watch is now a teenager. Soon it will want to start dating women’s watches…they grow up so fast.
My late teens were a painful time in my life; in some regards, I’m still recovering from them, but things have been getting better pretty consistently since then. You seem to be having an easier time of things than I did. May that trend continue.
I had a rough time with turning 20 and for the exact same reason! You spend 7 years identified as a “teenager” and then *poof*, you aren’t. It can be rough. Also, fair warning, you’ll have another freak out in ten years time when you realize your 20s are behind you. Enjoy them!
It’s probably for the best that you didn’t go on some sort of hedonistic binge. You’re reading “Polly Baker” for goodness sake, and the cosmos can be capricious. It would have ended much like Jurassic Park, but with a womb instead of paddocks.
Happy birthday! I have a great deal of appreciation for the oddness of getting older: I just turned 23 earlier this month, and had no idea what to make of that fact; I’m still not entirely used to being not-a-teenager. Birthdays have been weird ever since I turned 20, really, so I can definitely sympathize.
Congrats on turning 20! I’m 21, and in the year and a half since I turned 20 I have:
- started dating the love of my life;
- graduated from college;
- had a great internship which turned into my first real job;
- become financially independent;
- finally been able to get into all those 21+ shows.
I’ve found in my limited experience that you do a lot of growing up in your 20s. It can be scary, but adults get to do a lot of kickass stuff (like have disposable income!) Happy birthday!
I think people are surprised that you’re “only” 20 because you’re such an accomplished musician. It’s one thing to be able to play something, quite another to be able to play as effortlessly as you appear to. In your Mothers day song, you’re basically playing and singing and chatting at the same time. You appear to be able to do this with at least two different instruments, and you’re also a moderately skilled video editor.
I think many people believe that most people under the age, of, say, 25 don’t have the perserverace or to skill to perform at the level that you’re clearly comfortable with (I don’t have the skill, and didn’t have the dicipline back then, so I’m learning the guitar at age 36).
Since I’ve never been into drinking, 21 was never a big milestone, nor not being a teenager, I guess. I read as many sci-fi books before as after. My life’s milestones have never been numbers or ages, they’ve been events not tied to dates. I guess the only age one was turning 18, which means that I was legal to sign contracts or join the military, but I didn’t really do any of that for years.
My milestones would be more along the lines of (in totally random order)
- getting married
- being able to drive legally
- going to college, graduating from same
- going to grad school, graduating from same
- owning car, owning car that wasn’t given to me, owning new-ish car that I really like (just happened this spring)
- stuff in professional life, like having papers published
- getting pilot’s license
-
i really enjoyed reading this. the first story really touched me because i did a similar thing. i don’t even know why i was so freaked out but i started crying and sobbing in the middle of the night out of no where because my birthday was the next day.
hope you have a fantastic birthday! : )
Happy birthday! It was fun to read this today, because it is my birthday also. Today I’m 21 and like you said, the idea of turning 20 is harder than the idea of turning 21. Last year I just kept thinking “I’m in my 20′s?!?! How can that be?” That led to me thinking about how in 10 short years I would be in my 30′s. Today on the other hand I got a shiny new driver’s license and just used it to buy a bottle of whiskey to drink with my friends tonight. Enjoy your day and when people ask, say that you’re only 19 years and 12 months old, but not 20.
Believe me: you’re not “a twenty-something” until you’re AT LEAST 24, and by then, it will some on slowly and painlessly.
Honestly, life for me (and my wife too) has only gotten better and better, in general, as we keep going. We’re 41 and 45 now. (I hope that having aging nerd fans doesn’t cast a pall over your persona.)
Mmmm… cake.
It’s tough, it really is. Twenty hit me pretty hard, as all my idols (Trey Parker, Kevin Smith, Edgar Wright, etc) had started doing big, important things at twenty, and I was sitting on my ass and drinking.
21 hit equally hard, except I got a tattoo, lost my virginity, and went out drinking legally all within one week (some happened at the tail end of twenty, some happened after 21) and it felt strange.
22 was the worst. I spent a lot of time crying and getting entirely too drunk and realizing, that maybe, I need to learn to drink in moderation a bit more than I do. 22 stung because college is over (less than a month left) and my life is going to change in a lot of big ways I’m not ready for yet. I’m still terrified, and I’ve been twenty two for not more than two months already.
So essentially, what I’m trying to say, is that yes, it’s okay to be scared and feel weird and not know what to do. But you’ve already come so far and you’ve got a lot ahead of you. I’m really excited to be able to call myself your friend, and see where things will take you.
But try your best to feel good, because birthdays are the one awesome day that it’s okay for everything to be about you. You’ve still got plenty of time left in the day to be amazing, Molly. Use it well.
Happy Birthday Molly. This world is a better place because you are in it.
As a follower of the “age is just a number” principle myself, I’m trying not to make a big deal out of it, but I felt compelled to say…
Happy mutual 20th birthday.
Congrats on completing your second decade! Now you get to move on to level three! The mini-bosses start getting tougher around now, but you’re probably not far from unlocking the “Drinking Age” achievement, and that comes with some pretty sweet power-ups. Have fun!
I actually think everything gets better from twenty onwards. So there’s that.
Happy Birthday! Personally, I had a much harder time turning 29 than I did 30… I suppose 39 will be the same way. But if it makes you feel better, in one more year, you won’t be limited by age when it comes to music venues– and Sea-town has a TON of 21+ venues that kick ass (in particular, the recently-resurrected Crocodile Cafe…)
And on behalf of grown folks everywhere, welcome to adulthood.
First off: happy birthday!
Now that I got that out of my system…
I’m totally on the same boat as you. My b-day comes up in spring, and I’ll be 20 as well. I was totally on the same mind track as you a few months back– granted, it’ll surely return when the fateful day is near. I understand with the “I need to get out and do something with myself” mentality, except right now I’m sort of planning on joining the Peace Corps… Maybe >.>
Hope being an adult works out!
Happy birthday, sultry songbird!
Decade birthdays freak me out too, but you’ll be an awesome twenty-something, I can tell.
That was a nice read.
Happy Thanksgiving, Molly.
Happy Birthday, Molly! I admit, I was one of the ones surprised that you were “only” 19, because as Craig points out above, you’re already an accomplished and talented musician.
Age *is* only a number – until you wake up one day and realize “Hey, how’d I get to be 16/20/35/44, etc. anyway?” But then life distracts you and you go on abou the business of just being you.
Plus, as you pointed out – cake! (Mmmm, cake!)
Happy Birthday! If you were in CA, you’d probably be going to Disneyland for free. Keep rockin em up north! See you in Long Beach in January!
I thought my birthday was in January until I was about 15. It’s actually a week before Christmas which was just too inconvenient for everyone, so nobody remembered until January. Oh well!
Happy Birthday!! 20 isn’t bad, it’s 30 that really hurts.
Happy Birthday awesome Molly! 20 is scary but trust me 50 is moreso…
Geek on!
I don’t know if where you live it’s also like this, but in Argentina, 21 is the age at which we become legally adults. So being 20 is like this weird silent year that sits between your last year as an adolescent and your first year of adulthood. (I think it’s parallel to being 13, out of your years of puberty but before adolescence.)
Oh wait you don’t know what being 13 and not being a teenager is like either, the number ends with ‘teen’ in your language. Crap.
(got here via Dinosaur Comics!)
Happy Birthday…be thankful that you were born in America for we have freedoms that no other country has.
Hey I was born on the 23rd too! Except in 1988. Yay turkey birthdays!
I’m pretty sure that I’m your dream guy. Don’t worry, it’s okay to be shocked.
お誕生日おめでとう！
20 is Japan’s 21, so have a big celebration and imagine you’re there!
It makes me happy to read something like this and actually know all the people you are talking about. Sorry I didn’t say happy birthday on your birthday.
My birthday is also November 23, although i never had the thanksgiving problem… HURRAY FOR CANADA!