Today is the first full day of being thirty. It hasn’t quite sunken in yet, to be honest. It seems like just another number. And that’s all it really is.

I remember being present for both of my parents’s thirtieth birthdays. I remember making cards for each of them–cards that had the number on it: 30.

My parents had four kids by the time they each turned thirty. It’s crazy to think about that. Four kids.

I feel like a responsible adult because I take good care of my dog.

I spent time reflecting on my twenties last night. The different places I lived, the different mindsets I had, the different joys I experienced, the different troubles I faced. Each of those ten years seems truly unique when I really look back, and yet they all kind of blend together at a casual glance.

Ten years ago, when I turned twenty, my birthday also fell on a Monday. I had three finals that day: Oceanography, Classics 20, and Greek 1. I read the time wrong for my Classics 20 final, but my T.A., Cameron, let me take the test in the next time slot under the supervision of my bosses in the now-defunct Visual Resource Collection for the UCLA Art History Department.

I had an awkward dinner that night in the Hedrick dining hall with my on-again, off-again girlfriend that year. (We were off at the time). Afterwards, I remember translating a hortatory subjunctive passage on my Greek final that came out to something like, “Let us not send gold to Homer’s brother on the island, since he is not teaching the men well.”

The next time my birthday will fall on a Monday will be in 2022, and I’ll be thirty-six. I wonder what I’ll remember from this year. Or from other years.

Good thing I’ve gotten better at journaling.