Honestly

Birthdays are weird... You enter the world on a certain day at a certain time and every year you celebrate that another year has passed and you are older. The rights of passage that come with them are weird too. Turning 13 means your a teenager and no longer a kid. Turning 16 is SWEET and you can legally drive. Turning 18 means you're an 'adult.' Turning 21 means you're responsible for being an adult. Turning 25 means you can rent a car (that's a BIG deal) and its your quarter century. Some people see 30 as one, but I can't figure out why. And then there's 50. The big 5-0, that one is a right of passage in itself.

I just find it fascinating that we celebrate getting older, yet we want to keep looking younger. That' the ultimate goal is to live a long life, but not to look like it. I find it so interesting how our skin ages and changes over time, because it is indeed our largest organ and deteriorates like all the other ones. I am all for taking care of it (sweat, moisturize, sunscreen) but when you start injecting shit, that gets scary...

I was only thinking about this because I celebrated my 22nd birthday this past week and it was a blast, but the morning after I had the revelation. Then I thought about this past year and everything that happened. How turning 22 isn't a big deal at all, except for someone who wants to be Peter Pan. Responsibility seems to be presenting itself at every possible angle the older you get.

It sucks.

But at the same time, it's reassuring. It means that you matter. People need you. Knowing that people need you is a hard concept to grasp, and if you don't grasp it you lose those people. That's also a hard concept to grasp. Growing older means you feel more. As a kid on the playground you felt a lot, but they changed all the time. As we get older we feel longer. We hold on to things, and not all of them are good things. In fact, we have a tendency to feel one thing for a long time because we are scared to let it go. As a culture I feel like we are scared to let things go. Was it necessary to make 14 Land before times? NOPE. Let that shit GO.

I try to make it a point to not hold onto things emotionally. This has hurt some people, but also helped them (I hope). The longer you hold onto something the more it has control over you. If you know me, you know I HATE to be controlled, and I refuse to let it happen. This has also hurt people, and myself, but it's the way I am.

Sometimes you just need to write things down.

<3