Shoelaces for Josie

Sometimes 25 things is a little. Like 25 feathers. 25 strands of hair. 25 kernels of corn. 25 pieces of dirt. What can you build with 25 pieces of dirt?

And sometimes 25 things just feel weird. Like wearing 25 pairs of long johns at once. Dating 25 guys at the same time. Blowing your nose with 25 tissues in your hand. 25 years of living and breathing and being.

Yep, today I turned 25 years old – celebrating a quarter century of redheaded Erica-ness swirled down the drain. And it feels weird, watching the last bits of number 24 slip down the drain with number 25 taking its place. It’s weird that 25 should be any different than 24, but it is. All my high school classmates are getting married and having kids, advancing their careers and buying homes. It’s weird that, as kids in high school and just out of college, we set goals and milestones. Why do we do that? Life is going to step in and have its way with those milestones and goals, to heck with all your carefully laid plans. It’s weird, 25 is just weird.

It doesn’t help that I think birthdays are kinda dumb. They set you up for failure. No matter how old we get, it’s ingrained in us – at least at some very small level – that something special is supposed to happen on this day. But every year older we get, the more likely something special is not going to happen. Indeed, the likelihood of something unspecial happening hikes its pants up to Steve Urkel heights.

Without even trying, we set ourselves up for disappointment at the very best and hurt, pain and sadness at the worst. It’s why I don’t like expectations. Far too often, they end in a puddle of crap on the floor.

*I should maybe take this moment to say I’m not a very big birthday person. Maybe I was born that way, although I suspect there’s a very healthy dose of upbringing thrown into this particular equation.*

In the absence of having anything else to say, I’ll leave you with my favorite birthday quote of the quarter century: