Has anyone even heard that song? I totally didn't realize 22 was the new thing until I heard it on the radio which I never listen to and then I was like, well..great. I missed it. The only things I got when I was 22 were weird looks when people found out I was already married. Coulda used some T-Swift support back then but whatevs.

My birthday isn't something I get extra excited about for whatever reason, but I do think birthdays are neat. I sure can't wait to celebrate Ellie's...but it's like..I clearly don't remember when I was born or even the first few birthdays of my life so I'm just trusting that my parents did cool things and let me smash my face in a cake at some point. They are working on getting some VHS tapes converted over to DVD and then I'll be able to broadcast the birthdays I don't remember to the world so everyone can see how weird I was even from an early age. Kidding.

But today I was thinking about how I'm turning 24 and nothing ever really feels different when you wake up on your birthday except that for a while you feel like an idiot when people ask you how old you are because you genuinely can't remember until it's almost your next birthday and then the cycle starts again. And then I randomly remembered how things do get more complicated as you get older, and it's not a bad thing. Because I seriously remember a time when the biggest stressor I had in my life was what to write in peoples' year books at the end of the year. No. Really. I don't know what made me think about it, but I just remember standing in the hallway with peoples' books propped up against the wall and I me having some crazy amount of writer's block and increased blood pressure when deciding whether to write "love ya" or "call me" if I didn't actually mean it or want them to call me. But also I didn't want them to get upset if they compared messages with other people where I actually did write it because I wanted them to call me. Or like what about that kid that you knew always had a crush on you but it wasn't mutual so you don't want to be all like, "Can't wait for next year!" and give them false hope but you don't want to be a jerk and like...just sign your name. Please. Someone. Sympathize with me? Those were hard days.

Life clearly gets more complex and we're clearly dealing with issues that are totally non-yearbook related now, but it's cool to think about how we never would have had the mental or emotional capacity to deal with things like this at that age anyway...so clearly there is something to this "aging" business.

I'm talking like I'm turning 75 and have all the wisdom in the world to offer. I'm basically only turning 24 and still feel really young and clearly I'm not even fully over the yearbook situation because I got stressed out writing about it so I've got a long way to go. But HEY! Here's to what I hope is a really good year, and a day full of getting as many hugs as my heart desires because Chris can't refuse birthday hugs. He never refuses hugs for the record. But I'm going to ask for an extra lot tomorrow.

Woohoo!