Right On Tynes | It’s always rumored to be great. It’s always rumored to be the best week of our young adulthood. And after landing in the exclusivity of the upper echelon of collegiate nightlife, 21 is basically all it’s cracked up to be. For the first week.

As I sat on the wooden barstool in a shaded, cramped pub on North Main Street, it finally hit me. Not the cold Yuengling inching it’s way down my throat, well, yeah, that too. But adulthood was finally tangible. It was more than surreal.

There’s always a vast dichotomy between the beginning and end of one’s college career. The former begins with us scrambling for a weekend social life and desperately hanging on to our sanity in the form of class work and nightlife.

The latter ends with us having a light, for some, course load and, if wanted, a few more brews than we could have imagined, legally, purchasing than when we were fresh-faced freshmen.

And the joys of being 21 years young are everything they are rumored to be. You and your closest friends huddle together an hour before the cherished day begins at midnight and you hit the closest tavern.

Then, you leave your wallet at home. The group that you’ve clung to since the glory days in Holy Cross and Essef Hall are back together, purchasing you your selected sin of the evening.

But the one thing that’s very understood upon entering this first form of adulthood is interesting. The immense level of generosity that your peers have for you is at an all-time high on your special day.

Everyone wants to buy you a drink. And everyone does.

The next day at class, your professors understand. You wobble to your seat in the back of a classroom, much darker than before. A professor asks why you’re groggy, you let them know. Then they give you the head nod of approval.

In a college town, it’s a sacred right. A hidden paradise. Turning 21 is that exclusive moment that everyone, for a limited time, can understand. Because, unlike many other qualities of human life that can be misunderstood through the annals of academia, everyone knows what it’s like to be 21 for the first time.

It’s essentially as heavenly as it’s going to get, you know, for the first week. But, the difference between the rumors of being 21 and the actuality is that no one tells you how much money you end up spending and the plethora of responsibilities that appear from nowhere.

Plus that wonderful phrase “I wish I was a kid again” and the endless marathons of Rugrats that will begun to be viewed too frequently because the real part of adulthood finally sunk in.

Okay, that might not happen for everyone.

But what does happen for everyone is a sense of accomplishment. You wait your whole college career for that special moment and it stops being so after around a week. It gets old. You get old.

So, if you haven’t had your special moment yet, get ready for the time of your life. If you have, go try to relieve that glory moment, with your closest buds one last time.

Just kidding, we probably have some bills to cry about.

Tyler R. Tynes is a college senior from Philly studying mass communications. His email address is TylerTynes@Kings.edu. HIS OPINIONS ALSO DO NOT EXPRESS THOSE OF WRKC OR ITS STAFF. “Right On Tynes” appears every Friday. Follow him on Twitter @TylerRickyTynes