Years are funny because their rhythm is just slightly different for everyone.

My years used to be empty stretches of barren land, awful summer droughts of excitement before the start of school effectively canceled out my birthday through coinciding with it then quickly escalating into Christmas only to dramatically collapse into Winter doldrums, which would only be broken by the end of school and the beginning of another punishing summer. I had no family events, yearly excursions, and special projects to look forward to. It was miserable.

Everything is so different now. My birthday has become part of a week of Welcome Back parties collectively known as MelonBowl, Halloween is treated with all of the pagan reverence it deserves, Christmas lasts for two or more weeks as i catch up to everyone i meant to give presents to, i inevitably get involved with a play in the winter, spring brings a combined Elsie/Ross birthday blowout as well as our newly inaugurated Lyndzapalooza, and then with June as a short breather i am launched into the frenzy of Blogathon, followed by a rushed retrospective as CK celebrates its anniversary on August 26th, which then leads me again into my own birthday preparations.

Early this week i fantasized that if i were to win a huge lottery i would whisk all the people responsible for giving me so many amazing things to look forward to away to a quaint little town in a Canada or France or China, and we would spend all year celebrating life, without a moment to catch our breath. And, then i realized, we do that here anyway.