I think it was me who turned my mom gray,
      Who made her age a year in a day.
      My naughty boy antics with a mischievous smile,
      could so very well make a yard seem a mile.

      I'd crash my bike and hurt my head,
      fall off the swing and pretend to be dead.
      I'd wave at planes so high in the sky,
      how quickly these years have past us all by.

      Now I look back at photos that faded with time,
      and marvel at just how that boy's face is mine.
      That toothy white smile and the pondering stare,
      how on earth did I manage to get this far from there?

      Blow at the candles but don't blow them out,
      this is your moment to scream and to shout.
      Don't count your misfortunes no matter how vast,
      and remember to make every small moment last.

I don't write poetry, but while looking at some old pictures from my childhood I somehow came up with this one. It sounds kind of sad if you ask me, but it's not meant to be. I was smiling as I wrote it, thinking about all the crazy stunts I pulled as a kid (heck, as an adult too!) and how, despite myself, I have somehow managed to get this far in life.

Tomorrow is my birthday. At the weekend loads of my friends are coming from across the country to celebrate with me at a decidedly grown-up dinner, far removed from any drunken pub crawl rampage through the town that I might once have been enthusiastic to partake in. The following weekend the hairdressers from downstairs are taking me out to do it all over again... only, the chances of drunken behavior increases somewhat with that particular crowd, not that I am objecting in the slightest.

Birthdays are great, but I can wait for the next one for as long as it takes. The recent ill health and hospital dramas of my grandparents has made me realize that time has no patience with anyone as it snatches every minute from us like a child who refuses to share its toy. So if somehow this year is longer than the others, then you won't find me complaining.