An age of silliness

So I feel as though I've been trying to make my blogs all serious and have these massive revelations about humanity and what makes us tick at the end, but with finals, I just can't take another moment of analytical thought and trying to sound all smart, when really, I just want to rant about something that happened in college.

So. Allow me to go back to the original purpose of this blog: To tell y'all a little about what's been going on in my life. And perhaps to analyze a little bit about age versus tradition, since I really can't help myself.

I'm a person who likes labels. I feel safe when you can pin someone as a neat freak, or an extrovert, or someone who has a rather ridiculous obsession with Johnny Depp (hem hem...). It's comforting to box someone into a category, rather than just let the randomness that is humankind swoop over you. The label I've been struggling most with is age. I've been tempted to jump to conclusions that at age nineteen, I must act a certain way--that I must know by heart how to file taxes or talk about politics without sounding like a complete doofus. I'm silly and seemingly childish by nature, so this has been a real strugglebus. Yet through these past two years as an "adult," I've tried to convince myself that it is positively unacceptable to show enthusiasm for anything childish. I've tried diving into newspapers and classic novels, discussing the meaning of life, and throwing out all things glitter in my wardrobe, but it really doesn't do anything to the kid at heart. I mean, I've spent way more of my life as a child than someone who's supposed to be independent.

What does that even mean, supposed to be? I mean, we're all supposed to get eight hours of sleep per night and ace our classes with flying colors. Supposed to, unfortunately, isn't the majority.

So this age thing is even more prevalent when tradition comes into play. For as long as I can remember, my family has had a "Christmas tree sleepover" where my brother and I watched the Grinch, fed apples and cookies to Santa and his reindeer, and played an elaborate scenario in which feline political parties and Santa spying schemes are formed. It wasn't until age seventeen that I refused to take part in such endeavors, as I was "too old" to enjoy them. I missed out on a lot, and the pervading guilt overpowered a few hours of "holier than thou"-ness.

So this year, I decided to take part in the McKelvey Christmas tradition, minus the cat scenarios. We laughed about reality television and played an intense game of charades. M&Ms were eaten. Good times were had. At first, I could only think about that one question: At what age are you supposed to stop being silly?

Who knows?

  But as I relaxed and tried to win charades by flapping my "wings" and flexing my muscles for "Batman," I realized there isn't really a cutoff point for silliness. I mean, if there was an age when we're all supposed to start hemming and hawing and wearing fancy suits, this sure wouldn't have happened:

Labels matter sometimes--we'd be one giant blog of chaos if we didn't enforce some order in the world. But having fun with your family and friends on Christmas? There's never a cutoff point for that. It's nice to forget about the stress of finals and house-searching and just take silly pictures with your mother and introduce her to the wonders of Snapchat. It's worth it to act like a fool for a while--whether you're fifteen or fifty five.

Plus I got to do my model walk. Which is pretty darn sexy if I do say so myself.

Plus, I learned some pretty important life lessons this evening:
1) Red and green M&Ms magically taste better than any other kind.
2) Adults are not utterly shocked by Alex Day's "Stupid Stupid" video
3) My brother can jump freakishly high.

So I guess that was a fairly serious way to remind the world to be silly, but it's midnight, so I'm allowed to be ironic. 
Namaste.