As my birthday approaches on January 11th, I’ve taken the opportunity to reflect upon my life and take a look at all the years that made up who I am. Reflecting on my life made me realize how much I’ve grown overall as a person. As I sadly and nostalgically swept through every memory I could ever recall. Now that I’m 20, I never felt so old yet so young, living through my second decade.

Starting this new decade of my life, it felt like as if I died and was reborn again and had to start from scratch. I know it sounds weird but I remember the same feeling the minute I turned 10. It was hard to explain it as a kid back then but now that ten years have passed, I could recall that same feeling. It literally felt as if I had to start my life all over again until the next decade, shooting off from 0-10 (0 being 20, and 10 being the next decade, so that’d be 30).

Many people including my mother would ask me how it feels, and although my mother tried to not ask due to her feeling of being old, she wondered how I felt. And at first, I couldn’t give her an exact answer as I felt the whole sensation of realization of having lived 2 decades. But now I can say that 20 years can take its toll on a person, whether just turning 20 or going through 20 years with patience.

As anyone can admit years of being a child were fairly simple: make friends, learn how to communicate, learn how to read and write, learning hygiene, learning how to tie our shoes and wipe our ass, and take naps in between.

While the teen years were filled with puberty and hormones, anxiety, still on the making friend's stage, and trying to figure out our future without the possible knowledge of what the hell we’re doing.

Now as an adult, I’ve been able to retain all I’ve learned but I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Not to ramble but I guess that’s fine for someone who’s giddy for now becoming a new age. But to keep the focus on the topic at hand, I’d say that when you become a new age(mostly a new decade) you start to reflect on how life’s treated you and how much you choose whether to embrace it or regret it. It’s what you do in that moment of reflection where you’ve hit that stage of having an epiphany.

That’s where you come to fruition whether you’d want to continue your same old routine or reinvent yourself. The choice is yours, and I’ve decided to reinvent myself and take this new age as a blessing and for a start to not only a new year but for a new me. Until the next decade passes and I look back on this day and the years that came rolling after.