16.

I don't remember the exact moment when I suggested to myself that it's okay to grow up. It was a slow discovery, something that happened over many deep breaths all the way down to the bottom parts of my lungs, I think. I constantly tell myself, it wasn't when I was fourteen, or I was fifteen, or I was sixteen. And then I constantly tell myself, it was when I was fourteen, I was fifteen, I was sixteen. 
My baby sister turned sixteen today.
We all grow up somehow.

That was something big, large, a whale of a thought really that I had this morning while I hid the last clues for her hunt and brewed tea.
We all age together. 
I liked that. The community of humanity. How simple it is. We all age together, as one, in unison. Days belong to the earth and its inhabitants, no matter who they are or where they are or what they do. We all wake up and are given a gift.
Time.

A while ago I stopped taking time for granted. It's only a subtle ability that you can learn, but you can learn it nonetheless. The fact that you wake up every morning with the sun and you can actually breathe, that's something pretty dang spectacular. So often we forget to notice it though. I have sworn I won't.
Human nature surprises me. We count days past, but only celebrate a few. That's a pity. Because life should be celebrated. Consistently. Constantly. Always.

It is spring, and there are pink tulips blooming in my backyard and strawberry cake in the oven. Those things tell me today that I am always growing up, and never too. Because no matter how old I am, those behind me don't catch up. And no matter how old I am, those behind me are always younger, which makes me feel young too.
I've been given almost 8000 days.
I want to prove some of those wrong. The ones that I really didn't understand things I should have and messed up and deliberately did things I shouldn't have. And I want to live up to others. The ones when I surprised myself with a ferocity and spoke in a way that made the fine hairs on the nape of my neck stand up one end and I was undone.

Some mornings all I want to do is breathe. Others, I want to live.