twenty

20 years. 7120 days. 1040 weeks.

How did that happen? How did the last twenty years fly by so quickly and so slowly all at the same time?

I still remember my 10th birthday like it was yesterday. My parents were on a missions trip and my brother and I were staying over at our friends for the whole week. A sleepover with your best friends for a whole week was the equivalent to heaven when you were ten. Those were the days. My birthday fell on a Sunday that year and after church, we came home and tucked into hotpot and then later on in the evening, we had ice cream instead of cake. I remember we stuck two candles on the scoops balanced precariously on my cone. I still have the stickers my friend gave me as a gift tucked away in my closet. 

But that.. was a decade ago.

I've never been much to celebrate birthdays. I mentioned it before, but it's always been a low-key deal at home; I don't think I would have it any other way. I didn't have my first birthday party until I turned fifteen, and even then, it was with a group of my closest friends who all shared November birthdays.

Here we were, half the youth group in our tiny house. Some of these faces, I've lost touch with but I miss them. Those were good days. My parents look mad tired, haha.

Every year, my mom asks me what I want and I always tell her the same thing, "Just surprise me." She hates it.

I just hung up on the phone with her, in fact, and she said, "Just tell me what you want! I don't do surprises!"

I used to find our unwrapped Christmas gifts in her closet. And even though she knew I would find it in the same place, she still hid them there. I love you mom, although you probably won't see this.

But twenty, man. I can't describe this feeling because it's like I just turned the page to the next chapter of my life and it's a strangely thrilling and frightening prospect. Who knows what this next decade will bring? Who will she meet? Is this the chapter in which she falls in love? Gets married? Starts her own family?  Does she still talk to so-and-so from the previous chapter? I want to flip ahead and know, yet the best part of the story is simply allowing the plot line to unfold beautifully at its own pace.

Hello twenties, please treat me well.