10 minute Quick Write: Birthdays

So I want to start by saying, I walk into walls. This has nothing to do with my birthday, but it can and has happened to me on my birthday. Birthdays are days when you swallow a penny and then you have another penny jingling inside of you. I will have 23 pennies jingling inside of me on January 9th. It’s not very much but if you think of the max being 1 dollar. I’m a quarter of the way there. I have noticed that sometimes when I wake up in the mornings I have lines under my eyes I did not used to have. This sometimes worries me. I wonder if in another 20 years I will be looking into the mirror and thinking, I look so old. Once this woman who is now about in her 50s told me “when I see myself in the mirror its such a surprise. I still think of myself as I was in my twenties” and she showed me this picture of her skinny with long brown hair, a smile that had no worries behind it. I never knew her that way. She was always a pudgy short haired lady with wrinkles and a warm face. She still smiles a lot, but it is a different kind of smile; you knew she had been through stuff, like raising three sons. I look at myself in the mirror sometimes think, is this for real? I feel like I have been pretending since about age 16, and what, whats this I hear about myself: I live and work in downtown LA. I pay bills, I am responsible, I do grown up things like go out for coffee. It still surprises me that I know how to drive. And when I calculate I have been able to drive for 6 freaking years! That’s a pretty long time. My aunt offered me advice “why don’t you work in the corporation you are working now for the next 20 years and you will be able to live securely and retire at a young age” Hmm while that does sound like an interesting option, I think I will opt for security in God not a corporation and see what else life has to offer outside the box [cubicle]. And what is a young age anyway? You never know how old you can grow to be. There is a limited supply of pennies to be swallowed. Happy Birthday.