YYZ –>BOG IX: Thirty-One

Part I      Part II      Part III      Part IV     Part V     Part VI     Part VII     Part IIX

The travels of Sal Paradise documented in On The Road spanned 7 years, and took Kerouac 3 weeks to write.  I’ve always hated that book (for reasons I’ll gladly discuss with you over several whiskey’s at a bar sometime) yet I love the writing style, the idea, the main characters and Kerouac himself.  This Colombia trip spanned 10 days and took 4 months to write.  So clearly, I’m no Kerouac.  Holy shit, I really need to wrap this thing up.

But before that, two things about my birthday:

First, There was a period of time from about 2005-2010, where the shenanigans on my birthday grew tenfold each year.  The details aren’t necessary here…I’ll just say that the events surrounding each years’ birthday week (because when you’re between the ages of 23-27, it’s acceptable and not at all said to have an entire ‘birthday week’) celebrations during those years was more raging than the last.  Apartment signs were broken (not by me) girls were smacked on bar patios (smacked by other girls…NOT by me) feelings were hurt (probably by me) apartments were trashed (my apartment, but not by me) and evictions were threatened.  Needless to say, I’ve made a conscious effort to take it easier since then.

Second, I’ve always hated my birthday.  How could I hate my own birthday you ask?  Well, for one, the timing is terrible.  It usually falls during Labour Day Weekend, right at the end of summer.  There were some years where I had to go back to school the very next day.  So I always had to deal with my own melodrama of getting older, and also having to go back to school in some form on the next day.  On top of all that horse shit, when I was a kid, none of my friends were ever around on that weekend, so my pop and chip/bowling alley/McDonald’s birthday parties usually sucked.  I guess those parties during that 5 year span of destruction were a way to compensate for all the shitty birthday party’s I had growing up?

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Getting older isn’t easy.  Blah blah blah.  There’s nothing you can do about it, and trying to desperately hold on to your youth seems pretty embarrassing.  So, you should probably just let it happen.  Hopefully it’s graceful.  You’ll watch yourself age.  Things will start to sag, stretch(!) and wrinkle.  You’ll feel your body start to fall apart.  You get a hip haircut and a pair of complicated fluorescent coloured shoes, in hopes of appearing like you’re still ‘with it’  You take up jogging, and running marathons, strictly to force yourself to get some exercise and not get fat.

You won’t be able to do the things you used to do as easily any more.  Days before this trip to South America, I broke my arm skateboarding.  I have been skateboarding for almost 20 years of my life.  I barely remember a time where thinking about the condition of my board, some new trick, or stressing over the whiteness of my wheels wasn’t in the back of my mind.

The adult skateboard life – talking shit about ‘kids these days’ whilst sitting on a bench, drinking coffee.  With new, perfectly white wheels of course.

Still, to this day, and probably at least once a week, I almost rear end another car, while rubbernecking at a potential skate spot.  Or a cute puppy.

That trick I broke my arm on…It was a trick I had done many times before, and was good at.  It was one of my go-to tricks when I was 15.  It wasn’t even that bad of a slam, and I’ve definitely had worse.  This was all apart of that realization that I’m not 15 any more.

Now, on the other hand, I have just spent several days partying in South America with a bunch of 20 year olds, and I can still keep up with, if not lead the party.  So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.  I guess?

Turning 30 last year wasn’t so bad.  I managed to survive without curling up and crying alone in my king sized bed.

This year, I turned 31 sitting in some tiende, drinking .87 cervezas and Aguardiente with the Dean Moriarty and Carlo Marx in my life…along with some other new characters we met on the road.  The last night in Bogota made the 31 pill a little easier to handle, and was the perfect way to end this trip.  I also gained some deep wisdom on this birthday; The Hooters in Bogota is better than any Hooters I’ve been to in North America.  Next year I’ll turn 32, and I’m sure I’ll survive that one without crying too.

Side note: My Translator almost let me eat an Empanada that contained nuts that would’ve killed me.  So my 31st birthday almost put my 23rd-27th birthday’s to shame.  Almost.

Tomorrow, we’re outta here.