Today is my birthday. I am twenty-four years old.
So far it's been pretty mellow, as birthdays go. Kind of like, I already did my celebrating over the weekend, so today is just another day. Except that I don't get "happy birthday" IM's and emails and e-cards, or Hershey's Kisses and Lotto scratch-off's on my windshield, and I don't bring oatmeal chocolate chip cake in my lunch on regular days, so it has that going for it. :) I wish I had the day off. I was thinking about leaving early, but my boss just announced that we're having a meeting at 2, so that rules that out. Oh well. Maybe I'll share my Hershey Kisses with my coworkers at the meeting. :)
Joe says that 24 is the age when you feel old. I think he is right, at least, I know I feel different than on past birthdays. Sometime last month I was pondering and came to the conclusion that 24 is the age when you transition from "early twenties" to "mid-twenties". And it's not like that distinction actually means anything at all. It just means I'm getting older. It just means I'm three years removed from college, working for a living. It just means that all my friends who have one kid have two. It just means that ninth grade was ten years ago and yet I still send my French teacher a birthday card. It just means that my parents are empty-nesters, my littlest cousin is in college, and the "little kids" at family reunions are all taller than me.
It's kind of a weird phase that my life is at right now, and that's not to say it's a bad one because it definitely isn't. It's like a transition period between growing up and doing what it is I'll be doing for the rest of my life. I think I don't spend enough time in the present sometimes, I am always looking wistfully at the past or impatiently at the future. I know that what I'm doing now is not what I'll be doing in another twenty-four years. I know that even if what I hope for doesn't pan out, I won't be stuck here... I know there is something else in God's plan for me. I think that I realize this most clearly when I'm at work. :P But I think the reason that I'm here is because I need to learn to appreciate "here" so that's what I'm trying to do.
Anyhow, happy birthday to me. Obviously I'm in a weird mood, but I think that's mostly because I'm stuck at work and I don't want to be here. :P Not that anyone else wants to be here, or wherever they are right now... I think most of the world spends most of their time wishing they were somewhere other than where they are. And most of the time, I (like most people) just shut up about it and do my work and go home and try not to complain, because that's the way life is, and if you choose to hate it then you'll never be happy. But I guess, right now, because it's my birthday, I'm letting myself dwell on it a little more, because I want to feel like I'm entitled to something special that I'm really not entitled to, on the basis that I'm one of 16.5 million people in the world (give or take a few) that happen to have been born on September 19.
Ah, but I do have something special. Right here, on my desk. So I think I will take a little break and have a Hershey Kiss and daydream about the sweet cute who left them for me. :)