Something Happened

I am 27 and 1/2 years old. I have no idea how that happened. You can tell me that I'm still young, and most of the time I will buy the crap you are selling; however, 27 is nothing to joke about. I'm undeniably a grown-up these days.

I don't mean to beat a dead horse or anything, but I hardly resemble the 27-year-old me I used to picture as a kid. Which, as it turns out, isn't the worst thing that could have happened.
So, in commemoration of my 27.5 completed years, I thought I would take you through a timeline of significant events in my life thus far. I know, I know, there aren't words to describe your excitement.

1985 - I was born, and the party began
1986-1989 - mostly just a lot of being a small child happened here.
1990 - Took the"Germs Make Me Sick" episode of Reading Rainbow to my pre-school to watch. It must have scarred me because still I don't like germs. Or dirt.
1992 - Fell while tipping backwards on my chair and cut my chin open in Mrs. Johnson's 1st grade class and had to get 11 stitches. A story she told every year for the remainder of her teaching career.
1994 - Went to my very first concert: Janet Jackson. I think my mom thought we were older than we actually were...
1996 - Convinced my mom to let me cut my hair real short, and then perm it. Yeah, it was awesome. People thought I was a boy all the time, so my mom told me to start wearing make-up. My transition into womanhood had begun.
1997 - A boy in my class got in a fight with our substitute teacher and escaped out of the classroom window. It was so traumatic that I cried and now I never get in trouble or break any rules.
1998 - I wore lip liner and a faux leather jacket for my 7th grade school picture. Ate cheese bread with ranch dressing and a maple donut for lunch every day. And my best friend Cass and I rocked out to Prince's "1999" on New Year's Eve.
2001-2004 - High school. Pretty much the same as everyone else's. Complete with studded belts and bracelets, Dickie's pants in every color, enormous Osiris shoes, and going to punk rock shoes every weekend. I had my first kiss, started plucking my eyebrows (which probably should have started with the make-up 5 years earlier), told a boy I loved him, was almost a foreign exchange student in Mexico (not sure who's brilliant idea that was), had casual Fridays, and worked minimum wage jobs.
2004 - Left the nest for the first time. To Texas to be a nanny. It didn't turn out so hot and was a huge learning experience for me. Looking back, the two lessons that stand out to me still are: 1- how difficult it is to give tough love and 2- I am not a failure if things don't work out like I planned.
2006 - 2nd stint away from home. This time with my boyfriend and his friends for a summer job in Cleveland, Ohio. Drew Carey was right all along. Cleveland does rock. I'm pretty sure I cried a lot because I was homesick, but from my vantage point now, it was a really great summer.
2007-2009 - Life went on as normal. I started at my big-girl job, learned about myself through relationships, missed Jessica while she was gone, traveled Europe a little, and turned 24, which was how old I wanted to be when I got married. So much for that.
2010 - I dealt with the pain of a broken relationship and I spent the best summer of my life living large in San Diego with my Jessie. Kalie was the first in our family to get married, and we could no longer deny that we really were growing up.
2011-Present - Somehow I became an adult (this point is probably arguable). I think something clicked and I realized that I couldn't keep waiting for things to happen, I had to go out and make them happen myself.  So here I am at 27.58 years old. I wear funny undies, I have a mortgage, I will soon have a college degree, I have a job with a 401(K) and health insurance benefits. That is the definition of a boring grown-up, no?

More than all of that though, I have the happy imprints and painful scars on my heart from experiences that have earned me my 27 years and I wouldn't trade them. Not even to be married at age 24.

An appendix to this post of documentary photos coming soon...