Birthdays.

I was tagged by my trombonist friend, Tony (yeah, it's possible to be friends with brass-holes...you just have to learn to roll your eyes a lot). Sometimes tags are annoying, but this one is actually kind of cool. And, it's even cooler that it's on my birthday...or, I'll pretend it is because I know I won't be up for a significant post tomorrow, having just run a marathon and all.

So, here it is...a progression of birthdays...20, 10, 5, 1, 0 years ago...

20 years ago...I was turning 6. I was in first grade. I had a bunch of friends over, most of which I'm still good friends with now. I have pictures of all of us playing the piano, with only our two front teeth in, looking like little rabbits. I got a Kaboodle and hair accessories and thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. I had an awesome teacher, Mrs. Peters. She came over to my house for brunch with my mom once and I remember feeling really freaking special.

10 years ago...I was 16. I had been driving for a year. I was at North Carolina School of the Arts as a junior in high school. It was my first birthday away from home, and I was still adjusting to not being part of my old clan back at home. My friend Kim sent me an awesome care package, and I was counting down the days until Thanksgiving break and being reunited with all of them. What's amazing is that I'm still friends with them, and that they are perhaps the people who know me best in the world. I guess that makes sense since I grew up with them, but it's been a long time since I lived in proximity, so one would have thought we'd lose touch. I'm glad we haven't. I'm glad it turns out we're the kind of friends who can not see each other or even talk for a year, and then everything is completely normal within 10 minutes of being together again.

5 years ago...I turned 21. My friends from the Cleveland Institute of Music took me to a restaurant in Little Italy and then a bar on Cedar/Lee and I ate Beet Cake and got really drunk, neither of which is at all surprising. My roommate (and best friend) at the time got me the game of Bingo, because she said I might as well get used to playing it now, since I was getting so old. It was my first birthday with my boyfriend Phil, and he was too scared to get me a present. But, he came to both restaurants with a bunch of loud girls he didn't know, and then later held my head over the toilet and fed me water and bread all night...even though I was too sick to put out. I didn't want to turn 21. I didn't care about the legal drinking age, and I just wanted to stay a kid.

1 year ago...I turned 25. I was sitting on the couch in Phil's apartment, writing about the past year. It had been a rough period in my life and I was doing everything I could to convince myself it was over. It wasn't quite, but it was getting there...convincing yourself is the first step. I spent the weekend with my Phil and all my family in Philadelphia and ran the marathon. I tried to call someone to help me up the stairs when I got back to New Jersey, but when they didn't answer, I made it up by myself.

This year...This year was mine. Even if certain things took me longer to figure out than originally planned or desired, it was still a good year. Now, I'm doing well. Tomorrow, I'm going to be 26. I'll again run 26.2 miles through the streets of Philadelphia, but more importantly, I'll wake up in the morning and smile, knowing that I'm doing it for me. I've become involved in my flute playing in a good way; I've managed to find my much-needed balance between music and athletics and friends. Phil is in Hong Kong and we don't talk much anymore. So, I get lonely; I get scared of the future (I hate starting over), but it's all positive--it's the slight fear that makes you keep working, that makes you look towards the year to come, and all the years after that...