28.

For as long as I have had a grasp on the concept of age, I have wanted to be 28.

Twenty-eight, I reasoned, is the perfect age.  You’re still young, but not the kind of young when people don’t take you seriously.  You’re old enough to pursue your dreams, however plain or fanciful, but not so old that you start to see limitations about the time it will take to accomplish them.  You can travel, study, work, serial date, get married, or have kids…it’s a socially acceptable age to do pretty much whatever you please.

There’s a certain freedom, I have always imagined, in being 28.

My ten-year-old self rejoiced when I finally celebrated my 28th birthday last week in Maui.

I’m not sure what this long-awaited year has in store.  I’m optimistic enough to say I have high hopes for it, but I’m also wise enough not to make any grand promises.  A few years ago I may have made a bullet-pointed list of declarations.  How does the Bob Dylan song go again?  “Ah but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”  I still think goals (and lists) are great, but right now I’m just enjoying where I am and trying to live in the present.  The year ahead is bright.