I ask myself this very same question every year on my birthday, which is tomorrow. Last year, the question was: what is the difference between 20 and 21? Honestly, I am not feeling any different now than when I was 18.  Yeah, there might be more public privileges when you’re 21 than when you’re 18 but frankly, who cares about those privileges? It’s not like I need them or even depend on them.

What are the Public Privileges that a 21 year old has?

• The privilege to gamble

I live in Central Northern Utah, how often am I going to go to a casino and gamble with my three jobs plus school? Also, whether I go to Wendover or Vegas, it’s still a six hour drive one way.  So why would I want to do that when I can stay home and do something productive like sleep, read, or even go find a couple of extra bucks? Other than risk driving for such a long time and waste my money and who knows how much I am going to lose gambling.  So that privilege is useless to me.  Well, maybe it will come in handy someday.

• The privilege to drink alcoholic beverages

Okay, here’s another, drinking alcohol.  I’m sure a lot of people had already violated this privilege when they were 16 or 17. Moreover, this privilege doesn’t apply to me either.  Why? Because I don’t want to die young, that’s why.  My family here had already dwindled to my mom and I, I wouldn’t want to fill myself with this poisoned liquid and leave my mom all alone.  On the other hand, I get headaches just by sipping coffee and cola, think about what will happen to me if I take a sip of alcohol.  I’ve got big plans for my future, I’m not ready to be buried six feet underground in a coffin.

• Some privileges that actually apply to me

When I turned 21, I can finally get one of those adult driver license, you know, those that are landscape orientation instead of portrait orientation.  I think that’s one of the actual thing that made me feel good when I turned 21.  I finally can get an adult driver license.  Most of all, mom finally let me drive on the freeway alone! Woo!!!

Okay, so I am turning 22 tomorrow.  I’ve got to ask this, what is the difference between 21 and 22? I don’t know.  I don’t feel any older than when I was 18 or do I look any older either.  Honestly, if you look at pictures of when I was six, you would say that my face hasn’t change a bit through the years except maybe I’ve grown a few inches.  Even my voice hasn’t changed much.  My grandma hasn’t talked to me in 8 years and she said my voice still sounded like when I first came to the U.S 12 years ago.  Maybe I am just one of those people that don’t age much until they are like 50 or something.

OMG, what if that’s the case, people will be asking me where’s my parents or guardian at the insurance offices when I’m 30.  I’ll be like hello, I am like 30, do you really think I still need the supervision of an adult?  Then it came another problem, a huge problem.  My difficulty to have a family because people might think that guy has just married a child or something.  That won’t be good.  I just pray that won’t be the case.