As of today, I have been an independently-breathing human being for a full quarter-century.
As recent birthdays have gone, this one has been pretty good. I woke up early, ate lunch with some friends, got a car wash, and went out for dinner with my parents. Last year there was a power outage and I accidentally ordered a spinach quiche at dinner. The year before that I could barely walk because I spent the day before crouching down constantly to show Cub Scouts how to launch model rockets.
We'll see how the coming year goes; the last year has felt largely like a zero on the sum of my life. At the same time, I feel a lot more mature than I did a year ago—but that's true every year. I think that's how growth works. The experiential and developmental aspects of maturation (which are...all of it, oui?) take time to occur.
A higher gain might be nicer, though.
