Checking the Next Box

This coming Sunday, the 17th, I will turn 35.  This means on every survey, magazine quiz, legal document, and medical form for the next nine years, I have to check the 35-44 box.

19-25? Fine.  No qualms about that.  26-34 was cool, too.  I didn't mind being anywhere in that sucker, but this new one...well...it's a lot to take in, that nine year span.  It's going to include 40, and I have to tell you that 40 sounds like an unreal number, something that doesn't make any sense, isn't possible.

Inside, in my little pink heart I feel about 17.  I still laugh at all the things that made me laugh then (Weird Science, Growing Pains, my parents), I still love a lot of the same music (The Smiths, James Taylor, Ani DiFranco), I still read and am blown away by the same books (Skinny Legs & All, Catcher in the Rye, the poetry of Allen Ginsberg), and I am still stunned to silence by the same miracles of nature (sunrise, late blooming flowers, starry night skies).

It is absolutely shocking to think that soon, I'm going to boxed in by a whole other set of expectations, ones that traditionally mean I should be more grown up, less engaged, more settled, less full of wonder.  I am the oldest I have ever been--obviously--but each day I feel more alive, more engaged, more sure of who I am and what I want from the world.

So, here's to checking the next box, to embracing the next phase of life, to believing that getting older means getting better.