It’s after midnight, and it’s my birthday. Turning 23 on the 23rd of August has been something I’ve looked forward to my whole life. I shared this with a co-worker last week who told me that that’s called your “Golden Birthday.” *Has anyone else ever heard of this?* _Am I the only odd-ball who finds reason to celebrate in this numerical symmetry?_

*It’s been five years since I turned 18 and started my freshmen year of college. Five years!* So I’m supposed to be older and wiser, right? But even after countless lectures and all-nighters, graduation, some European backpacking, and a quintessential cross-country roadtrip, am I wiser? Have I changed?

It’s impossible to pinpoint exactly when you change, or if you changed, since it’s such a slow process, an evolution really. Have I evolved? Well, is there anything in my closet that I wore five years ago? Let me go look……

Nope, not a single thing. Although I do have a pair of “skinny jeans” I inherited from a friend sophomore year _(that I still can’t squeeze into)_ and a gray little boy’s soccer GAP t-shirt that I wore all the time Junior year. So I guess I’m wiser in some ways. Wiser in fashion sense. And I suppose wiser in life as well. You can’t really gain five years of life experience and not learn something.

*As for older….do I instantly feel older? Of course not. But time _has_ passed.* I look back at college now, and remember it the same way that I looked back at high school when I was in college. I can still remember a lot of specific days in college, what I did, what I wore, what I ate. But high school is very much just a faint memory. I guess that’s what I have myspace for, to reminisce about the good old days. I just hope this next year brings me some good _new_ days too.