By Kimiko Martinez
They say age ain’t nothing but a number.
But this year, the number 25 seems to be giving me a little bit of trouble.
I haven’t really had many problems with birthdays past, but for some reason this one, which is tomorrow, seems like such a doozy.
Okay, I admit I had a few concerns about the implications of 23, but I was fine with 24. So maybe it’s just the odd years. Or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m reminded on a daily basis how much older I am than everybody else.
Honestly, I was doing fine with it until Monday when I was sitting in a class and the teacher mentioned the Challenger explosion … and then I realized that, besides him, I was the only one in the class who could actually remember watching it on TV. I was in third grade watching the shuttle fire up its engines as it prepared to take the first teacher into space. And seconds later they were all dead in a mass of fiery flames.
But most of you are too young to remember any of that.
So, besides being one of only a handful of students able to recall the Challenger disaster, what’s so wrong with 25?
25 is a quarter of a century.
Since I was born in the late 70s, I fully experienced the fashion tragedy that was the 80s. (And yes, I actually wore banana clips in my hair and those huge slouch socks.)
I can actually remember owning records and cassette tapes of early Madonna and New Kids on the Block.
I was around the first time rubber bracelets were cool and leg warmers, as a fashion trend, were worn on your legs and not your arms.
I’m old enough to see characters being recycled for future generations: Scooby Doo, He-Man and Transformers. Heck, the Care Bears are even starting to make a comeback.
I hardly ever get carded any more.
But beyond all that, it’s about the outlook I have on life and the experiences that have shaped me as a person. Mentally, I feel about 37. I’ve been married, had a kid, been a full-time mom, worked a 9-to-5 job, juggled two part-time jobs and school, been divorced and now am a single mom.
—Got a gripe? E-mail Kimiko Martinez at kimiko.l.martinez@pepperdine.edu
October 24, 2002