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Silver jubilee

I asked my mom if there is anything about me that has changed from last year to now, and from when I was a child to my twenty-fifth birthday.
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I asked my mom if there is anything about me that has changed from last year to now, and from when I was a child to my twenty-fifth birthday.

She said, “You’re strong. Not just physically, but mentally too. It’s going to take a man with a lot of will-power to be worthy of you.”

Yeah, I got teary-eyed too.

Quarter of a century year-old, and the year that has brought me to this day has been packed with a kind of richness one remembers as intentional actions.

I’ve pedal-biked around Houston all the way to Monster Industries and to Countrywide Printing & Stationery to do my paper routes. I have kayak-camped with a friend around Louise Island for my first trip ever to Haida Gwaii. I have fallen in love and out of love and back in love again. Said farewell to my uncle as he returned to his home country. Congratulated my younger sister on her high-school graduation. Celebrated with my brother and future sister-in-law the announcement of their engagement. Welcomed surrogate nieces into my close-knit family. Met new friends, which you always think is impossible in a small town. Gone on many Aynsly-Ann bonding time adventures with my 9 year-old soul mate. Fart-laughed with my mother. And invested in myself as a writer.

In the last 365 days prior to my silver jubilee, I have acted intentionally to set out the broad-strokes of what I desire.

Recently a friend asked me, “What is your five year plan?”

Man-alive, if I know.

Though I know planning a year in advance usually never turns out the way I anticipate it to, I still try. Because I know that my greatest trait is the ease I have with adapting to circumstances.

Twenty-four taught me to let go of trying so hard to fit into a mold I think would be better for me.

I write this now, 24 years and 364 days old, with this hope:

Twenty-five, may you be the beginning of the all the possibilities I was given at birth, and a reminder of the all the richness that a quarter of a life is capable of.