I feel like I start off with “Well, this is it” really frequently.
So, I think I’ll mix it up.
Well, this isn’t it.
It’s my eighteenth birthday tomorrow. I’ve decided I just have to look forward to it. I won’t be sad or apprehensive. I just worry because birthdays only come once a year and I’m kind of a little kid about it. I like the little happy birthdays I get, I like the idea that for one day it’s like Christmas, just for me. It’s silly and childish (and selfish) but I adore the thought of a pink cake with rainbow sprinkles waiting at home where there’s popcorn and my sister and Nora Roberts and my mother’s cooking (and my mother, duh) and Criminal Minds on TV. That’s what coming home next weekend will be. So that’s kind of propelling me into birthday excitement from afar.
But you know, I’m getting pizza tomorrow, after all. It should be a good day. I’m not a hermit, so others are going with me, and we’ll hit up Cam’s for an hour or two and gorge ourselves on what I’ve heard is fantastic food.
But still. It’s my eighteenth birthday tomorrow, and although it could be “it,” I refuse to let it be. It’s not an end to an age (although literally, okay, it is). It’s a continuation of what seems to be a crazy-good time at an insanely interesting place. Seventeen was really cool, and I don’t like the number eight quite as much as seven, but that’s all right. I can deal. Instead of the fresh taste of adult existence just slipping closer, it’s right here and in front of my face. The hard brightness of independence is officially arriving and nothing I could do will stop it. It’s easiest just to let it wash over me, like the crash of the surf in Mexico. It is whether or not I’ll let it knock me on my ass and drag me around in the sand that’s the important thing.
It won’t knock me down. Change is eternal, and change is a balancing act. Just like the tides, it will ebb and flow and keep my world from running crookedly. Eighteen is just a single swift ripple that seems huge when it’s approaching, but by the time it’s crested I think I’ll have a better perspective on it. It might not be as intimidating as it first implies. Or, perhaps instead of looking imposing, if I run straight towards it, and dive through it, it could be a lot of fun.
I don’t know. I just hope tomorrow will be a really good time and a promising, exciting, vibrant start to another year. If it’s anything like this T-Rex I edited earlier today, it will be a freakin’ sicknasty-great year.
Yeah, I whitened his teeth. Jealousy accepted, since we all want that dashing grin.
my love like a voice 