Saturday is my 25th birthday. I’ll be a quarter of a century. Wow. (Yes, this picture is of me when I was a baby.)
My mom is here visiting with my fake!daddy in tow. This time, she let him get his own seat on the plane instead of packing him in her makeup bag. (For I have successfully taught my mom about men-in-jars — the ancient art of shrinking a man down, storing him in a jar, and pulling him out at full-size to use when needed.)
I love birthdays. They are awesome. To celebrate on Saturday, I am having a girls’ day at the spa and treating myself to a massage. (There are many ways that I am treating myself like a lady of luxury.)
While there are unsettled things in my life, I do think that at 25, I am pretty happy. I also think about different my life is than the other women in my family as they turned 25.
My mother was either engaged or almost engaged to my father when she turned 25. She married him shortly after she turned 26 and had me several months after she was 27. This turn in her life made her move to a smaller town, drive in the snow, and become a housewife. (Seriously, my dad took pictures of the hospital grounds the day I was born and there was snow everywhere. See why I live in Seattle now?) At 25, all my mom wanted to do was get married and be a mommy.
My maternal grandma had two small children and another on the way. She lived on a farm in rural South Dakota. She and my grandpa eventually moved to Oregon. It might’ve been when she was 25. But I am not sure of this. (Grandma, any help?) She likes to tell us stories about getting up every morning and butchering 25 chickens to take to market. To think that I don’t even have to grow my own tofu. Can you imagine how everyone would’ve laughed at a vegetarian then? The relatives already think that I’m weird enough.
At almost 25, all I want to do is read comics and hang out with my boyfriend and my totally awesome friends. I mean, we have important debates to consider — like who would win She-Hulk or Wonder Woman? Or maybe I want to ramble all over the interwebs and have conversations with with friends in other cities that I miss so much. Then I’m going to have a spiritual crisis as I drive by a beggar on my way home from my web design job.
I am amazed at just how different my life is. I couldn’t imagine being married or having children. I feel like such a young person myself, and right now, I don’t think I’d trade that feeling for anything.
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