Ever since I was a little girl, I found it odd when people would ask me if I felt older on my birthday. It was as if they assumed, I would wake up in the morning and be a different person. Someone older, wiser and more mature. The concept never made sense to me and yet I occasionally find myself asking others the same question. I guess it is just a societal construct in which over time I’ve learned to not give a second thought. However, as I’m approaching my eighteenth birthday it has me thinking. When I turn eighteen I will legally be an adult. Will I feel different in the morning? Because in the eyes on the law, at 7:36 on the morning of November 3rd I will will be different. I will go to bed on November 2nd as a child and wake up the next morning as an adult.

I find it ironic because I don't feel different on my birthday. I use to say I did when I was little but it is really just another day. I have never been the type of birthday person who goes all out on their birthday. Not this year though, this year I chose to celebrate it for two reasons. One is that this time last year, I wasn't physically in the state to celebrate my birthday therefore I didn't have a choice in the matter. Two is that I am changing. With the exception of my thirteen birthday when I became a teenager, this is the only birthday where there is a definitive change. The funny thing is, I know I wont feel a difference. I read a story one time that said you carry every age with you and grow upon that foundation. I wonder what I will carry with me from the age eighteen. I guess you could ask me the morning on my nineteenth birthday.