id have to say that one of my greatest fears in life is growing old. old age brings weakness and dependence, which are the very things i spent my entire childhood trying to escape. but, growing older is impossible to avoid.

today is my 24th birthday. every year, on my birthday, i take a good hard look at my life, everything it is – and everything it is not – and i think to myself , “wow, this just isnt what i thought it would be.” im very good at being negative. my glass has never been half full…or even half empty…usually its in the dirty dish pile in the sink.

even when you are still young, every year begins to look like another hour off the opportunity meter. at 24, i am now officially too old to pursue a career in gymnastics, figure skating or professional dance. how sad is that? i mean…im so graceful…

getting older has its benefits; the older you get the more experience and knowledge you have, which are two things that gain you not only more respect and higher pay, but also are impossible to gain otherwise. but with knowledge and experience also comes the ability to recognize and understand the concepts of strength vs. weakness, pro vs. con, necessity, consequence, priority and the reality of the irreversible. maturity teaches us that want and need are no longer the same thing. personal fullfillment takes a back seat to responsibility and dreams are exchanged for security. living well no longer means living happily – it means living safely.

and then of course there is also the matter of the degenerative nature of metabolism – the older you get, the slower it gets. (this is another reason why my chances of pursuing a career as a professional figure skater are looking pretty slim.)

these are all the unfortunate negatives that come with aging. at some point though, i do have to acknowledge that another year gone by has also brought with it some really good things as well. time has granted me many new opportunities and people in my life for which i am very greatful. it has allowed me to grow and change, experience and adjust, and move on from things i have discovered i do not want in hopes of pursuing the things i think i do want.

and every year that passes also brings me ten thousand new memories that i could never have acquired otherwise. memories are the single most personal thing that you own. no two people will ever have the same set of memories or even remember one single thing exactly the same. your memories are your own, to hold on to, to share or to alter as you like. and i value them greatly and intend to take every single one of them with me into my old age.

in conclusion (the one thing you never say in an essay), id like to thank everyone who has shared those experiences with me and helped me make those memories over the course of the past year.

and a very BIG thank you to all the people who came out with me saturday night to help me bid farewell to my early twenties and welcome my mid-twenties with good times and good booze.

i might be growing older, but at least i have good company.

as a blog writer, i am also a blog reader. ive always been a huge fan of “people-watching”. in fact, i can almost call it a hobby at this point. and reading blogs feels like the next step in people watching. i can read all about the life and times of some stranger all the way across the world and, unless i choose to make myself known, he or she has no idea that im “watching” them. you know, as i write that, i realize just how creepy that sounds. im not stalking you. i promise. at least…not most of you.

anyway…i digress…

as a blog reader/people watching/legal stalker, i very often do random blog searches on the internet just to see what comes up. today, through series of random searches followed by some blogrole jumping, i came across a page that maintains an active list of “iraq” blogs, these are the blogs of civilians at home blogging about their loved ones abroad, journalists embedded with troops, and soldiers currently serving in iraq.

reading a soldier’s blog goes far beyond “putting a face” on the war. you can really get to know someone through their writing; you get to know about their personal lives, their thoughts and opinions and beliefs and even get to know their personality. clearly you dont actually know the person, but you can feel like you know them.

something that makes this war really hit home is to find one of these lists of “iraq blogs” and, as you scroll, see all the ones that now have red text underneath the title and description that say something like “killed in action on july 7, 2005”.