It’s the 20-year curse. Not a curse to last 20 years, but the curse of being a 20-year-old. As I sit inside on another exciting Ames night, I entertain myself with a healthy mix of column contemplating, procrastinating and even a little homework.

And, just blocks away, one of my friends sits outside on Welch Avenue, waiting to be let into the bar for the first time ever.

At midnight she’ll be 21, and end what was probably one of the longest waits of her college career.

The wait doesn’t seem all that bad, but you can get pretty impatient watching as all of your friends get older around you. In the next couple of weeks, three more people who I’ve known for as long as I’ve been at Iowa State will be passing the 21-year mark themselves and getting the infamous red line removed from their IDs.

Before I make myself seem like a huge drunk-to-be, let me explain the meaning behind the bar scene. In an introductory anthropology class, we discussed the rites of passage that put forward the contemporary American youth into adulthood.

While some cultures have clearly defined situations — such as the bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah ceremonies for the Jewish culture and cultures in Africa who have a rite of passage ceremonies — the mainstreamed youth of America do not have an absolute transition.

So it’s then up to a community, family or an individual to determine what rite of passage will launch them into adulthood. One example from the discussion was even as simple as being allowed to sit at the “adult table” during Thanksgiving dinner. But not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving the same way, or at all.

Arguably, the beginning of puberty might be something of note, but at the same time, that’s not exactly the thing you get thrown a party and get accolades for. At least not in most families.

Turning sixteen can be a big deal. It’s a bigger deal for females than for males as a milestone date, but depending on the local driving laws, it might be your chance to get behind the wheel.

But even after you finally pass that road exam and blow out the sixteen candles on your cake, there’s still more to go.

So where exactly does it stop? Every time you pass one milestone, it seems there’s another just farther up the road.

The largest leap seems to be the chain of events that are linked with graduation from high school. All together, the events immediately near high school graduation are some of the more liberating ones, and they happen in such a short time span.

Most students have turned 18 or are near 18 by the time they graduate from high school. As a bonafide legal adult, they’ve passed the first hurdle of sales restrictions.

We can move out of our parents’ home and enter either the real world or college, both quite possibly the biggest leap in adulthood we see in American culture.

But once you enter the college world, you see, as always, that the hill keeps going with more milestones to pass. Hopefully, the ultimate goal of pouring our money into the university is to leave with a degree and the knowledge for which you came. Watching graduation approach, the intermediate milestone is your 21st birthday.

It’s not about going out, how much you drink or if you even drink at all — it’s just another milestone for you to pass. It’s one of the last ones, and, whether you want to or not, now you’re legal for most everything.

There are even restrictions, depending on management, that might keep you from renting cars or getting a hotel room. So the whole turning 18 becomes arbitrary until you’re 21.

Plus, this is Ames. Seriously, there isn’t too much to do around here. Since there isn’t really an 18-and-over nightlife, students wait anxiously for just one more thing to do.

Not being old enough to get out of your house isn’t that big of a deal when you’re a lot younger than you need to be. But the anticipation gets worse as you get closer, say within 58 days, and all your friends are leaving you behind one by one.

Slowly but surely, you’ll catch up with them, and pass another milestone in American culture. Like all the other milestones you’ve passed, such as being able to drive, buy tobacco or sit at the adult table at Thanksgiving, turning 21 means more responsibility.

So, happy birthday to all you November kids — I’ll see you out in January.