today you are a man!

The magical moment during which one "transitions" from boy to man has
always occupied a certain place in my brain. One day I'm one thing,
and the next day I'm another? When I was young all I wanted was to be
an adult- drive a fast car such as an Alfa Romeo or a Porsche, make
thousands of dollars a day at my prestigious and culturally relevant
job, have the freedom to continually works of staggering genius, spend
my leisure time in whichever way I feel is the most inspiring, and jet
set off to exotic and tropical destinations around the world (and
perhaps in outer space) whenever I can make the time...

but now I'm in my mid 20s and those dreams are still slightly out of
reach and I still am unempowered- so by the standards I set up for
myself, I'm still not a man. Didn't we hear that song before, only
Britney Spears was singing it? I'm not a boy, not yet a man...

I'm not trying to pretend like I know something about Judaism (because
I don't know anything about it) but I guess according to that school
of thought it's when a male turns 13 and has a Bar Mitzvah. For some
people, it's the day one receives "the talk" or perhaps the moment
where the dad says, "son, today you are a man." For some, it's the
first ejaculation that marks the real moment of adulthood (along those
lines, I became a man at 13; previously, I was convinced I would only
shoot blanks). For others, it's the day that one achieves peer
approval and becomes the coolest, most masculine, or most popular boy
in school. For others, it's the first time they have sex with whoever
or whatever really turns them on.

My whole life I've been chasing that magical moment- the single
isolated turning point in time where all my inconsequential, petty,
and/or immature boyhood issues and problems would efficiently dissolve
themselves away. All of a sudden, my real world "adult issues"
wouldn't be that hard to deal with, because I'd be an adult with adult
emotions and intelligence. How hard could my life really be if I was
an adult in the real world?

...and then there are some boys who refuse to grow up, and never
become men, such as (me and) Michael Jackson...