It’s my birthday today.

And I’m filled with a feeling of excitement and anxiety. A mixture of pride and dread. Sixteen was a good year, in fact a great year. And I’m sad to see it go. I wish I had more time with it to tell it how much it meant to me. To tell sixteen that I loved them, and they weren’t alone.

As of 6:29am I am seventeen. That’s one step from eighteen, out the door; have to do my own laundry. It scares the shit out of me. But not the monster scary, more like the rollercoaster scary.

It has its plus sides though, I can now legally buy music with parental advisory’s stickers, get rated M games, and go see and buy rated R movies.

It’s not that big, I know but it’s a step in the right direction.

Shit, I’m seventeen. I’m still getting used to it. Hard to believe that the year was so long, yet went by so fast. Flashed before my eyes, before I had time to blink.

When I looked in the mirror this morning, I thought I looked older. Not old in the physical sense but old, and tired. It makes me wonder if I’ll still get carded

I think I’ve matured over the year, and finally slipped comfortably into myself as a person. Like an oversized pair of loafers. I feel whole, old, where did the time go? Did I spend it well? I’m one more step closer to freedom, and one more step closer to death.

It’s hard to think that this is the day my mother laid on her back drugged up from an epidural, as I was delivered viva C-section by some Chinese dude.

Thinking about it its like, wow that was seventeen years ago. And I think of how little I was and how big I am now. And I think of my mother. I wonder what it feels like to be her, and feel this great sense of pride and this feeling of sorrow; that I’m not a little girl anymore and I’m growing up, and knowing that she did a good job. I want her to know that. She did a good job.

I make my peace, and wave. Knowing that if you love something you have to let it free, and all good things come to an end.

Goodbye my sixteen year old self…

Hello seventeen.