Brea Jones

So I turned 23 today, which means I need to edit the “Quick and dirty” information on my Web site and I get to quote the first line of one of my favorite songs. It continues like this: ” … named after my mother. My old man is another child that’s grown old.“

Twenty-three is one of those strange in-between years where having a birthday does not mean you can legally enter a California bar for the first time or graduate from college, but it isn’t at the point where you start counting down to 30, and then 40, and then 50 and then retirement.

Every birthday before this one was strictly a celebration, but this year I feel reflective, and you get the pleasure of reading about it if you continue on:

It it sort of strange how we celebrate the day of our birth, as if each day is not a celebration of life and each breath not the same as the next. Upon turning 23, the only real significance is that when people ask my age, I say “23″ not “duces” as has been my usual response. I don’t look older, I certainly am not wiser, so why celebrate a birthday without any benefits?

I think it will be more meaningful to celebrate the day I’m not longer asked for an ID to get into an R-rated movie. I’ll let you know when that day comes, and all of you loyal readers are invited.

This isn’t to say I won’t celebrate my birthday.

A good friend of mine has celebrated with me for the past decade. He was born 21 hours and 19 minutes before me in a neighboring town and after a formative year as 12-year-old enemies, we’ve been confidants and birthday buddies.

So we’ll celebrate: another year further from the comforts of childhood, which seemed so difficult when we were living it but seem so easy looking back; another year of learning who we are and rejecting all the things we don’t want to be; another year of quarter-life crises and struggling to sort out if this is really what life is supposed to be; and another year of taking each breath as it comes and each smile as a blessing.