After 33?

Today is the last day of my 33rd year.

This really didn't hit me until today. Every year before now, sometime in January, my mind switches over to thinking that I am the "next" age. If someone asked me my age in mid-January, I would automatically admit to being as old as I would be on my birthday coming up- and by the time my birthday arrived, I was well adjusted to the new age.

Not this year.

I never imagined myself being older than 33. This may sound weird, but as a child growing up in a Catholic school and a religious household, my ideas about grown-up life (and life in general) were centered around the Church, around Christ's life, and the lives of the Saints. Christ's ministry began in His 30th year, and He was crucified in his 33rd year. Somehow, I got the idea in my head as a youngster that the years between 30 and 33 would be the ones that mattered the most in my life... and I never truly thought about what would come after.

These last three years have been the hardest, the most terrible- and the most wonderful years of my life thus far. I have learned more these three years about how to try to live than I learned the prior 30. But now I need to figure out how to take these lessons from the last three years and apply them to living out the rest of my life.

It's strange, however, reaching this point- where tomorrow, I will be older than I ever imagined I would be-before today.