Mark at potkettleblog:
Most days I have a hard time understanding that I'm not still 21.
Yeah, me too, except that for some reason, I always think I'm 26.
Dunno why. Nothing terrifically important happened to me then. Clinton was inaugurated into office the first time, while I was living in suburban DC, and I got to see that the old saw was true, that the tenor of the town really does change depending on the occupant of the Caucasian House.
The hatchback of my car fell on my head on my birthday, so when one of my housemates asked me how it felt to be 26, I replied truthfully "Well, my head hurts and I'm a little dizzy." My housemate, who was (and is) a fair amount older, looked at me and said resignedly "Yeah, well, it doesn't get a lot better, man."
That month, that year, my wife and I might have embarked on the round of dating, after a few false starts, that led to us finally getting married. That would be notable, except I can't remember if it happened that year or the year before.
I was driving a dark blue 1984 diesel Ford Escort, the successor to Scrap Metal, my battered and beloved 1985 Ford Escort. For reasons that I don't feel like getting into right now, the elder Escort had the nickname of Blue Pig. But it was no more finicky that year than any of the others I drove it.
I did not become rich, famous, richly famous or famously rich that year. In fact, as I recall, I was vastly underemployed and poor that year. I wrote long letters (real mail! This was before anyone but graduate students and defense contractors had email. Imagine.) to my friends abroad and thought idly about saving my pennies and travelling to join them. I drank a lot of Michelob (the choicest beer available at the nearby convenience store - I don't think I've had one since, but I if I did, memories of that period in my lifewould come flooding back to me with the first sip) and ate a lot of frozen burritos.
(Editor's note: Inspired by writing this, I went out to the liquor store and bought a six-pack of Michelob. It wasn't the same. You really can't go home again...)
But I digress. The short of it is I don't know why, but I automatically self-identify myself as 26 years old.
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