I haven't thought much about my 21st birthday. But it is looming there ahead of me, 3 months away, 86 days to be exact. Last night I had a dream about it, a dream in which it was my birthday and I did the same sorts of things I always do on my birthday, except that I forgot that as it was my 21st birthday, I should now be allowed to legally drink. I forgot. I didn't do anything about it. In the dream we even went out to dinner and it never occurred to me that I should order a glass or wine or do something. At my mom's birthday dinner, we were talking about her being 50 and I think to take the attention off her she said something like "so what are you going to do for your 21st birthday? Buy a lottery ticket?" And I was like "...mom, I can already do that. What do you mean?" Later I asked her if she inadvertently brought up other privileges I have already attained through age to distract me from buying alcohol on that day. Does she have some fear that once I'm able to buy alcohol, then there will be the problem? She said that wasn't it, and she just forgot, but I don't know. Both my parents had their alcohol problems before turning the legal age, and it seems I've managed it so far so my right to purchase I don't think is going to unleash any kind of spark in me that puts me over the edge. I've already come far enough in figuring out what I really think about alcohol (it's not the problem, the person is the problem, and as simple as it seems it took me a long time to get to that) and went through talking to my mom about it. I don't think my attitude is going to change drastically in 3 months. In 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn', Katie, the mother, worries that her children will have a problem with alcohol the way their father does, and she tests them on new years eve with spiked egg nog. Her children say they don't like it. I don't know if I will always have to act like that around my mom, or if anything will change, but for now I'm just wondering if she really is nervous for that day the same way Katie Nolan is nervous in my favorite book.