Nate grows up to adult birthday

Since high school, my son’s perception of birthdays has matured. At 18, the only greeting in the mail was a card from Uncle Sam reminded him to register for the draft within 30 days – or else! Uncle Sam never said a thing about him also being old enough to register to vote.
Welcome to adulthood: Meet your responsibilities; we assume you know about the privileges.
At 19, he celebrated his birthday driving an ice cream truck up and down the hot streets of New Orleans ringing a bell and listening to its musical ditty hour after hour. He came home after 12 hours of exchanging ice cream for coins with a few dollars in his pocket after the ice cream dealer took his cake.
He looked blearily at his cake, showered and collapsed into bed.
His life-long tradition of not attending school on his summer birthday ended when he turned 20 and signed up for summer school. He spent his birthday listening to a lecture on organic chemistry and working in the lab. His e-mail reflected his shock, “I never thought that would ever happen to me. Everyone else went to school on their birthday, but no me.”
The night before his 21st birthday, he woke up early for his midnight shift at the factory. Fifteen minutes before he was supposed to be there, I woke up as he frantically searched for a misplaced ID badge. He finally sped off to work, checking in as the clock struck 12.
The only hint of a wild 21st birthday party with cool chicks was when a rack of packaged chicken breasts fell on top of him. After throwing trays of frozen chickens for eight hours, he returned to an empty house. We were at our day jobs. He changed clothes, grabbed his backpack of books and drove to Ruston, La. so he could, again celebrate his birthday in class Louisiana Tech, listening to a lecture on computer programming.
He says he did have one wild moment on his birthday. Driving through the rain to Ruston, a car pulled out in front of him. HE slammed on the brakes and headed off the road to avoid hitting the car. He got to class late. The professor’s lecture about being on time was twice as long when another student came in after him.
He slumped home and fell into bed. His dad and I came home long enough to tiptoe around as we packed for a weekend retreat. We wished him a happy birthday before we left, only he was too tired to remember it.
He was tired, but he would not have overslept – if someone had not turned off his alarm. He ended his birthday being 90 minutes late for work.
After a very sane and sober 21st birthday, someone asked him if he had celebrated his 21st birthday. He was insulted. When did he have time? He worked from midnight to sunlight, drove a 100 miles to take a class so he could graduate, avoided an accident and went to bed in the middle of the day to do it all over again the next day. Just like any other adult.