Dad walks slowly toward our kitchen table.
In his hands: a cake lit up like a New York City night.
Mom sings joyously off-key as she trails behind him
with a video camera and an uncomfortable flash.
Dad sets the cake down in front of me
and as Mom’s final note fades, I exhale,
extinguishing each of the eighteen tiny flames
in a single breath.

It is only the beginning now,
still thousands of tomorrows to come.
I am young and my path awaits me,
my entire life lies ahead.

Five years ago
I was awkwardly stepping side to side,
the hands of my seventh-grade crush
hovering over my hips,
and my fingertips resting on his shoulders.
My heart racing and my face growing flushed
as an Aerosmith ballad brought me my
first slow dance.

Five years from now
I will be anxiously pacing back and forth,
wiping the sweat from my palm
as I prepare to shake the hand of a potential employer.
I will inform him of my greatest strengths and skills. 
My heart will race and my face will grow flushed
as I pray to God that this will be the day I am hired for my
first real job.

In those ten years,
from my thirteenth year
to my twenty-third,
I will have already experienced many firsts
and lasts.
Time will have slipped away, as chapters have begun
and ended.

And today, at eighteen years old,
thousands of yesterdays have come
and gone.
Though I am young, what lies ahead is not
my entire life--
it is my entire life
minus
eighteen years.