It's my birthday and I'll blog if I want to...

This day in history: on August 17, 1939, The Wizard of Oz opened; in 1982 the US Senate approved an immigration bill granting permanent residence to anyone who had arrived before 1977; in 1983, I was born.

I share my birthday with a few famous people including Davy Crockett (1786), Samuel Goldwyn (1882), Mae West (1893), Robert De Niro (1943), Belinda Carlisle (1958) and Sean Penn (1960). So, Happy Birthday to all of us (um, well, except the dead ones I guess!).

Though I'm turning 27, one phrase still crops up when I'm talking about what I've done and my ambitions. In some of my more disheartened moments following a setback or disappointment, I've been asked how old I am and when I disclose this information, someone will say "oh well, you're still young!" or "you're just a baby, you've got plenty of time!"

It reminds of the feeling you might get after going through a bad breakup and then going to your sister's wedding and having an elderly relative talk to you about how hard it must be to see your little sister get married before you. I should imagine the words "plenty more fish in the sea" are just as repugnant as the "baby" line.

At this point, it would be remiss of me not to recall a hilarious comeback from the movie 27 Dresses when the aforementioned situation occurs and Katherine Heigl's character answers the question about how hard it must be with "YES, but then I remember that I still get to have hot-hate-sex with random strangers and I feel SO much better, enjoy the party..." I want someone to ask me that question one day just so I can use that line; c'mon little brother - hurry up and get hitched!

Losing a parent threw me into overdrive and it hasn't stopped since. Just like in the period following a bad breakup, you don't want to hear there are plenty more where he came from, and I don't want to hear how I still have plenty of time. None of us know if that's true or not, and as I continue to lose people close to me, my drive and sense of urgency grows stronger.

I tend to treat every day as if there's no time to waste and if I find myself willing to put something off until I'm older, then it's probably not worth doing. If you can do it now, then I say do it now! Perhaps that's me showing my age or obsessive ambition; it's how I feel.

I've found it interesting how I get treated differently once I reveal I'm in my 20s. I'm looking forward to this upper-mid-20s zone because people might stop viewing me as the twentysomething ambitious type and actually realise I'm not going to give up any time soon. Then again, maybe not.

I remember thinking that once I reached 21, I wouldn't be treated like a child anymore. But I feel there's a dismissive notion that your 20s are just the time to have fun, your 30s are for learning the lessons and your 40s are to pay for the drinks.

That's not to say I'm not having fun, but if someone asked me what my focus is in life (now or for the past 11 years), then my answer is always going to be filmmaking, not just simply "having fun" because filmmaking is fun for me. Everything else comes as a peripheral enhancement which I think some friends have struggled to comprehend in the past - it's a bit like being married to your job.

I think 27 is a pretty good age to be, though: it's close enough to 30 to be taken seriously, but still young enough so I'm not reaching for the brown paper bag and bottle of gin in a blind panic! Not that turning 30 is a bad thing, but I do recall telling myself at the age of 18 that I'd win an Oscar by then! Hmmm...let's take a moment here for a reality check and do some goal revision - new goal: I now plan to have my first feature film released by the time I turn 30! Steven Spielberg was 29 when Jaws came out, Peter Jackson was my age after finishing Bad Taste and Bryan Singer was 30 when The Usual Suspects hit, so anything's possible, I guess.

Now, I leave you with the wise words of one who shares my birthday, because they made me chuckle the most: "A hard man is good to find." - Mae West

Do you share a birthday with a famous person or major event in history? What age do you start taking people seriously?

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