Birthdays....a day of cultivating rapid growth.

I must say....my residents are awesome. And I will tell you why. They baked me a cake (Funfetti is DELICIOUS!!!!) and then gave me a mild cardiac arrest by singing Happy Birthday to me. While I was holding my laundry. Yes...I was in fact doing laundry when the clock struck midnight (a girl needs clean clothes non??)

But when I woke up at 7.20 cause my mom called and sang 'Happy Birthday' to me, the followed seven minutes later with my dad calling me. For the split second I was awake, I realized that I am no longer a teenage. Physically. However, I finally started feeling like my body and time was catching up to how I feel emotionally. Like I was always two years ahead of the game. Now- this is not to say that I feel completely 'the right age yet'. And I don't necessarily think that will ever happen (okay...maybe when I'm like...70 or something.). But as of now I can personally stop feeling like I'm in limbo so to speak.

Speaking of speech, I am now using a program in which I can learn Portuguese. And it is AWESOME!!!! (full nerdy moment....now.)But that is CLEARLY besides the point.

I find that birthdays most of the time for me have a love-hate relationship. I don't really like 'celebrating' or 'flaunting' that it's my birthday. It's not my style. If you know it, you know if, if not, I don't hate on you for it- cause there are bigger things to focus on and remember then the moment you were born. Not to say I don't think I'm special...but politically, there are so many moments of birth that get ignored it's hard to gauge them together. There is so much growth to do as an individual, like into a better being, scholar, activist, friend, lover, etc. that it's hard to think a birthday trumps all of that. But no matter the case, I still had a nice one. Later Monday night, one of my friends took me out to dinner, but I noticed that she was not acting like herself. She has been going through some serious stuff and didn't want to "bring me down on your birthday". I told her that no matter what day it was, I would've wanted her to feel good on my birthday like I did.

PLEASE NOTE: The best gift you can ever give me in life...is to let me share my moment with you. Always.

But as always, with time comes a little bit more knowledge, a little bit more clarity, and we ask for a little bit more sanity but....baby steps.