1:15 a.m. december 29

when did it get to be december 29? where did 2007 go? how has this year, this month, my christmas break flown by so quickly?

the other day, my mother was trying to explain how the years feel to go by faster the older you get. her explanation was that the years are a smaller part of your life as you get older, so therefore they seem shorter compared to the memory of the life you've already lived. for example, when you are 5, one year is a fifth of your whole life so far. but by the time you are 25, one year is only one twenty-fifth of your lifetime.

i think in addition to that, as you get older you stop noticing the small things. you get wrapped up in the day by day...waking up, getting dressed, commuting, going to work. the days fly by when you have a routine. as a kid there was christmas and summer vacation to break up the humdrum daily routine of school. i remember ten weeks of summer that felt like an eternity. but that too flew by too fast.

my whole childhood, it seems, along with my early 20's, has gone. adulthood is scary...and i'm not ready to let the next 25 years of my life fly by without taking much notice. some things have got to change. i'm going to set some goals and set out to achieve them. so when i'm 50, i can look at my list and say, "yes, i did that," and i will feel accomplished.

i look at everything that i've accomplished in my life and i'm proud and satisfied, but i know there is so much more i could have done, and want to maybe do in the future. going to grad school, for example. or living abroad. getting a freelance gig, or starting to write a book, or taking time off to travel for a few months at a time.

when i was little i had a book that had all these empty slots for you to fill in. there were things like "my house has __ number of lightbulbs" or " i am __ inches tall." but there were also spots to write what you wanted to be when you grew up and other dreams and aspirations like that. i kept that book, and will keep it forever, because i love to read it and compare notes. compare what i wanted to what actually ended up happening.

as the first quarter century of my life comes to a close, i'm ready to start a new list of aspirations.