xiii

“Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.”

           -Chili Davis

            I watched a movie on VHS tape today for the first time in eight years. It was grainy, bad-quality, and I loved it. I still remembered the exact commercials, loud and flashing, that came before the movie itself, boasting arrival dates in the far-off future of dystopian 1994.

            I saw my childhood best friend today for the first time in eight years. It was awkward and I loved it. She legitimately hadn’t changed at all. Now I tower over her like the very adults that, a decade earlier, we would both look up to in awe.

            If this is what it feels like to be getting older, to be getting more mature with each passing day, to know that things are changing for the better, to know that things are changing for the worse, then I love it. Bring it on.