As my 20th birthday looms ever closer, I become aware of a deep and insatiable desire. It is an urge so base and instinctual in its nature, that it stifles any protests and overcomes all barriers. It is the desperate longing for manhood, for maturity, for completion. I don’t mean a brief feeling of superiority that comes with an initial conquest. I mean something deeper. Something that can only be achieved through experience and adversity. I pine to put aside childish things and leave the safe, well tended path I’ve walked so far in my life. I burn to stray from the trail and burst through the underbrush of the world, forging a new path all my own. I long to meet obstacles and challenges on my own, and overcome them through nothing more than my own skill. I am no longer content with the safety and comfort of the known. I shun the careless bliss of boyhood and choose instead to embrace the rough and dangerous struggle of manhood.
