What a difference a year makes...

In which I get back on the blog horse and get a little sentimentality all. over. myself.

I acknowledge that I have been an absentee blogger.  Hopefully I can submit the excuse that I have been gloriously, actively busy with Real Life Stuff and get a pass from any of you still hoping to read more here.  As my classes for the Spring come to a close next week, I should start to have more time to keep things up to date.  May is going to be a big month.  I intend to record some of it here.

But... the real reason for this post, is, of course, to talk about my feelings and to remind you all that it was just my birthday, and you're still within the acceptable window to send me any of the posters in Tracy Jordan's dressing room as a birthday gift.  Just kidding.  Although, seriously, if someone can get their hands on a Who Dat Ninja? poster, please tell me how.

This past weekend I celebrated my 27th birthday.  Now, 27 is possibly the least significant birthday milestone I've celebrated so far - I gain no new rights or privileges, and I haven't yet slipped into the "oh god I'm almost 30" despair vortex that I understand comes with turning 28 (right, that's a thing?).  I've been able to rent a car for two years, no big whoop, and I'm still a hearty ways off from being able to run for President, which gives me plenty of time to locate my birth certificate.

Still, measured by one standard this birthday marks the end of one of the biggest years of my life.  That standard being change.

Let's look it over, because I kind of want to see this in writing.





When I turned 26, I lived at home and had no realistic prospects of changing that.
When I turned 27, I was about a week and a half away from moving back into my own place in the city.

When I turned 26, I had no job, an unfinished degree and no plan for the future.
When I turned 27, I had an internship, had nearly completed a 4.0 semester and was looking forward to transferring to UPenn to finish up my long-neglected B.A.

When I turned 26, my joints were giving out on me and I had no idea why.
When I turned 27, I was waking up every day feeling stronger than the day before.

When I turned 26, I was looking back on living 10 years of feeling tired and miserable all the time and feeling no particular pleasure at the prospect of living many more.
When I turned 27, the memory of how I used to feel was fading, and the prospect of life ahead, feeling the way I feel now, was thrilling.

When I turned 26, I weighed just under 300 pounds.
When I turned 27, I weighed just over 200 pounds.

When I turned 26, I had no idea what was wrong with me, but the sense that something was wrong was overwhelming.
When I turned 27, I had a name for it, and the name made it small.

When I turned 26, my joint flare-up made it difficult to even walk from my bed to the bathroom in the morning.
When I turned 27, I was looking forward to participating in the 3 mile Liver Life Walk.

When I turned 26, I didn't really want to turn 27.
When I turned 27, I developed a vague sense of anxiety about eventually turning 72.

When I turned 26, I felt profoundly alone despite the people around me - the daily pain I was in, and the effort to suppress talking about it or making it the center of conversation despite it being more or less the defining feature of my existence, was alienating.
When I turned 27, I was recognizing every day the incredible luck I have to have the support I have from, and the relationships I have with, an incredibly strong family and group of friends.

When I turned 26, the best thing I had to look forward to was getting to sleep every night.
When I turned 27, the best thing I had to look forward to was becoming an uncle for the first time, narrowly beating out a huge number of other great things I have coming my way.

When I turned 26, I felt like I was turning 75.
When I turned 27, I felt like I was turning 18.  Life, it turns out, starts here.

I know that as I go forward, and the way I feel now finally eclipses the memory of how I felt for a long time, the daily things will feel less significant.  Eventually, I'll take for granted the fact that my body works the way it's supposed to, or that I can sleep through a night, or that I wake up in the morning even if my alarm doesn't go off.  I know, at that point, that it will be a daily obligation to remind myself that all of those things are lucky, wonderful things and that for a lot of my life I didn't have them.

For now, though, these daily gifts still feel fresh, and they've made a year of my life that had a miserable beginning turn into the best one I can remember.  So, let this be a reminder to my future self about the way things were wrong, and the way they suddenly became right.  Let it be a reminder that no matter how daunting the road ahead can seem, at one point it was a cliff.

Not much humor to this post, since I'm feeling oh-so-earnest about it (wouldn't even feel right to end it with and I owe it all to hepatitis!, would it?)

Oh well.  Here's a puppy handstand.

Love you all.