Twenty freaking nine.

This week I hit yet another milestone: I turned 29.

Twenty-nine years living. For the ones who are older this might seem ridiculous, pathetic, even, but for me, 29 means I’ve *lived* for ~10592 days and that’s a whole lot. I do not intend to go on about life and its meaning, because life has different meanings for everybody, so the day I turned 29 (Tuesday, 28th of January, 2014) I recalled various past memories, and one struck me (as it did around new year).

(I need to start from the very begining:) I had somewhat of a panic disorder when I was a kid, in school. I started crying, completely out of nowhere, whitout any reason, feeling helpless and very very scared, wanting to run away (I would if they let me), in some particular moments (usually when it involved mathematics). One of those moments, I was having lunch, and my aunt (slash my primary school teacher) was there as well. I was happily having a conversation with my school friends when the subject of future came up and amidst the chat I blurted out something close to “ppffft! In 2014 we are not gonna be here! We will all be dead!!” in a very know-it-all tone.

My aunt, having heard it, cut me off by telling me “Oh really?! How old are you going to be in 2014, then??” and I started bawling my eyes out immediately. But my aunt had seen it before and not understanding what was wrong (despite many tries to), pressured me to answer the question. Tearfully and sobbing, I counted and answered “29”. My aunts response was “You see? you won’t be dead and no one will be dead, we’re all gonna be here!!”.

Unfortunately, she was wrong. She isn’t here anymore. But I am quite alive and twenty freaking nine years old.

These 29 years have been quite the ride, with the usual and obvious ups and downs. I am now old enough to understand that it will always be like this, it won’t get better nor worse, it’ll be both. I guess that’s fair.

One just has to realize what is really real: moments, people, feelings, time…and be thankful for it all.

So here’s my thanks to everybody (four-legged everybodies included) that have had a touch in my 29 years of life (I could even insert a “you know who you aaaaare”).
Thank you.
and happy birthday to me — I like to reflect on past and future, when it’s my birthday, always have, so I am sorry if this sounded boring and on the verge of emotional.

Next post will follow shortly with a special note!

PS: Incidentally, I turned out later to be one of the top students in Maths, ah. And I never understood (nor anyone else) what was going on with me at the time.