Daily Newsie

I’m spending my morning the same way I always spend my mornings: wrist-deep in a bag of Funyuns, nursing the first Diet Pepsi of the day, and chair-dancing to a techno remix of “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” I am 25 years old and work at a small Kentucky newspaper where I write stories about organizations selling Christmas cards and 10-inch previews of events to come.

I was satisfied with this calm (though fattening) life until about an hour ago, when one of the editors came over and asked if I saw any gray hairs in his mop of brown curls. Incredulous, I reassured him there were no silver strands and asked how old he was. I’ve long assumed that, considering his accomplishments and his place in life, he was at least 10 years older than I am.

He’s 25 years old, too. Dude is married, owns a popular downtown coffee shop, is our third-ranked editor, just welcomed a baby and does other stuff that makes him seem a lot wiser than his years. He showed me his driver’s license to prove it and it’s true — January 1981. I was born in May of that year.

This has all led me to question exactly where I am and what I’m doing. I don’t even feel like an adult yet, for Heaven’s sake, and here’s a fellow quarter-lifer who’s kicking my butt in every aspect of my world. Some months it’s all I can do to keep my head above water, and it’s both inspiring and frustrating to see someone my own age knocking it out of the park.

This was the impetus I needed to pick up the phone and call Dr. G., who’ll soon become my graduate adviser at the local university. I’m going back to school in the spring, I’m going to succeed, I’m going to graduate in fall 2008, and I’m going to go places and do things that will make people think I’m older than I am. (And I’m going to keep working here for the time being, so don’t despair — tales of severed grasshoppers and cemetery goats will still abound.)

It may be indicative of my overactive fantasy world that I draw inspiration from A.A. Milne, the author of the “Winnie-the-Pooh” books, but I found this quote the other day and can’t stop thinking about it. It seems fitting for what I’m about to do.

Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.