Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ve been living for 34 years. 12,410 days. That doesn’t seem like very many to me. If I had a dollar for every day I’ve lived, I still wouldn’t be able to pay off my student loans.

The past few nights I’ve stepped out onto my patio before heading to bed. Sitting there, looking at the flagpoles atop the buildings downtown (I can count seven of them), listening to the remarkably quiet hum of the City, I’ve thought to myself, each night, I’ll be lucky if I have twice as many years ahead of me as I have behind me. And it strikes me as an oddly teen-angsty thing for a budding 34-year old to think, as it leads me to old questions, withered from a decade of neglect, but resilient.

Who am I? Where am I going? What do I want? Who will I become? What do I believe? What do I believe is important?

They were silly days, just a split-decade ago, when these questions wailed urgently, soaring over the vast, empty gullies of my brain, kicking up confusion and panic with their importance, whirling into a turbulent, indecisive storm.

But these past few nights, fathoming my finitude with clarity, these old, withered questions whisper only reminders – calmly, temperately.

(What do I believe is important?)

If I’m lucky, I have more years ahead of me than behind me.

(Where am I going?) The end is right there…