Birthday Epiphanies :)

So, every year around my birthday I have an epiphany with my feelings for the year. It's really strange, most people make changes on New Years, but I make it on my birthday. Perhaps this is because for the better part of my life, my year starts and ends as the school calendar dictates; not to mention the obvious answer that it truly is when a new year begins for me.

I'll recap the past four years birthdays because those are the most important to me.  When I turned 18, there was a sense of adventure and drama, which developed into anxiety. When I turned 19 I became single, and that set the tone for a year of rebuilding the warrior queen within. My 20th birthday was surrounded with anxiety and I spent the better part of that year wishing to be 25 and settled. (Quarter life crisis?) At 21, I decided -- fuck it! I'm 21, this is my year for fun and to shine and not let anyone bring me down. Every year, I mostly fulfill or carry that feeling from my birthday throughout until mid april or May.

This year's epiphany is a doozy...are you ready for it?

I'm grown up.

Let's break it down -- this year was supposed to be my graduation year and launching me into society as an adult. That's kind of a year behind schedule, but it hasn't kept me a kid longer. Tomorrow I move into my first apartment without any of my parents help. With MY good credit score, I got approved. I opened a bank account with my roomies. I won't need my parent's help paying for anything.

I own my own truck - the pink slip's in my name. Everythng I do is my responsibility. Student loans? All in my own name. The only reason I'm still my mom's dependent is to get healthcare - but that will drop off next year. I will have a career soon, I'll have to pay my student loans back in a year and a half. Soon I'll be thinking about buying a house, investments, gettina a new vehicle and retiring chuck to the desert (his rightful home where he and I can just play)

What an exciting thought. I'm a grown up. How scary. I'm solely responsible. I've done a lot of growing up in the past year and I didn't even notice. Perhaps that's why I've gotten into so many fights with friends. Maybe they've been static and I changed and thus opened my eyes to their immature ways.

And maybe, just maybe I now realize that getting married isn't something that's quite so far off. I mean, not for years, I'm still single. But I can't perach that we're too young anymorew because we're not.

So I'm gonna embrace growing up and be smart about it. I'm a planner. And now that I'm no longer living paycheck to paycheck it's time to start investing. I'm ready to rise to the top. And here comes a hard year of planning the magazine.

I'm ready to be an adult. I'm ready to reach for my dreams and watch them come true, are you?