When you think about your own birthday do you feel excitement, dread, sadness? I feel excited for the cake mostly, and also because for 24 hours I get to feel special. I also feel a small sense of dread that no one will remember, or be free to hang out, or that even though it’s 24 hours of feeling special, maybe I won’t? Does this happen to anyone else?

When I turned 21, I remember telling everyone that I was “getting so old”. When I turned 23, I never would have guessed that I would move to Atlanta that year. I continued to believe that I was “so old”. When I turned 24, my friends came to visit me, and we decided the best hashtag for the weekend was “Trap queen 24”. When I turned 25, I made donuts for all of my friends, we sat on the living room floor and drank mimosas. At 26, I studied in a coffee shop. A lot of life has happened since then and I realize how young I was, and how ridiculous it must have been listening to me say that. I give you all permission to slap the senses back into my 21-year-old self.

The musician Maggie Rogers just released a new record and she wrote a little piece about it. She says, “I found my space in the place between knowing who I was and finding out who I am”. This past year has been a gift. It’s most certainly been a rollercoaster of highs and lows, but it’s given me more confidence in understanding who I was, am and who I will be.

Today, I turn 27 and I’m not going to say that I’m getting old because I know that while a lot of life has passed, a lot more life is left to live. I still love brunch, I still love to read and write, to laugh [my most used emoji is the crying/laughing one], and I love to feel the breeze on my cheeks, the silence of snow falling in the trees, and the sound of rain in the middle of the night.

Hind sight is 20/20, but wouldn’t the future be a bit boring if we could see so clearly?