a new countdown

I have exactly one more month to be 25. This shouldn’t really be that significant. Nothing special happens at 26. It’s been 8 years since I became old enough to vote. It’s been 5 years since I became old enough to legally drink in America. I don’t get any special insurance breaks or the ability to rent a car without a co-signer.

There’s nothing very significant about 26 except that it

                                                                                         sounds 

                                                                                                       so 

                                                                                                              old.

 

 

I know it’s not actually old. The weird thing is I don’t think of 40, 45, 50 as old. It’s just that 26 is where I am and I’m not sure how I’ve gotten here so fast. That makes me feel old. I can’t believe I’ve been out of college almost as long as I was in. I can’t believe I’m closer to my 10 year high school reunion than I am to actual high school. I can’t figure out why most days I still feel like a teenager. Nothing about passing time makes any sense to me… or most of you, probably.

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The year I turned 9 my birthday came about a month early. My parents put me in the car and drove me from Cary, NC halfway to the coast. It was dark by the time we stopped in front of a ratty looking home surrounded by farmland. About twenty minutes later we were inside the home and I was holding the tiny white puppy that would become my best friend for the next 8 years.

 

The year I turned 13 I had mono. I’d started counting down to my birthday at 90 days. Somewhere around 30 I got very sick. I missed nearly every day of school until the week of my birthday when I absolutely insisted I was healthy enough to go back. I didn’t want to miss all the colorful signs and balloons on my locker — because that’s how middle school girls celebrated each others’ birthdays in 2000.

 

When I turned 18 I somehow ended up with four different cakes from various groups of friends. That was easily my most delicious birthday ever.

 

I was the first of my college buddies to turn 21. A couple of my older friends drove down to Charleston to help me celebrate. We went out to bars I’d never been allowed in before. We had a blast, though when I count the celebrations of 21 I count February, March, April, and August as each of my college roommates joined the party.

 

There’s something about birthdays that I love very much and it’s not the gifts.

 

I say all of that to really say — I’ve always been a person who puts way too much emphasis on her birthday. I usually celebrate for an entire month. I’ve been absurdly blessed with a family and friends who feed into my birthday obsession. I’ve counted down every year and no one has ever beaten me up for it. I’m just not used to not being incredibly excited about the new number and I don’t know how to celebrate that.

 

So I’m trying something new. I want to take this blogging thing a little more seriously than I have. Some of you have seen, read, or skipped past these links I’ve posted on Facebook or Twitter. I don’t blame anyone for skipping over them. It’s not that I believe I’m particularly eloquent or talented. It’s not that I think I have anything of real importance to say. I just want to push myself to actually say something (however narcissistic that may be). For every day of this last month of 25 I will write something here. There’s no end goal except to prove to myself that I can work up the guts to post something publicly every day — good or bad.

For my 26th birthday I’m going to give myself the gift of just letting the words get out there. An entire month of celebrating my word vomit…and myself – so I guess some things haven’t changed.

 

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a particularly embarrassing photo of me turning 19.