New Air

The body turns on itself. The lungs fill with something else other than air, an invisible hand reaches in and crushes the heart. After four straight days of celebrating my quarter life, all that excess cake and bad cholesterol has finally taken its toll. As I type this, I am sitting up in bed, trying to breath.

25. What does it mean to be 25? Some get married. Some have children. Some do both. Others forge ahead with their careers. Most ask themselves - What Does It All Mean? - and end up having too many answers, or none at all.

Younger friends ask, what does it feel like to be that old? Though I am tempted to slap them up their young, obviously yet unformed heads, I love how they keep reminding me how much I'm already aging. Oh, I had that same reckless, impervious confidence when I was their age. I'd thought then, when looking at or speaking to my elders, my, how it must feel to be so old, never realizing that I too would age, would begin to feel my breasts sag, the faint laugh lines above my mouth deepen.

Older friends say, this will be the best time of your life. I am old enough to know that I have responsibilities and obligations to fulfill, to help a young girl get through her own teenage angst, to write progress reports and calculate my taxes, to know that sometimes life can be unfair and there's nothing you can do but live it. Yet I am still young enough to have the occassional fling with the hot trainer in the gym, to make old men stutter by simply smiling at them, to be extremely, foolishly optimistic even when it seems the world's fallen into shadow. But it has not, and it will not.

I am happy, and I am hopeful that everything will go my way.

This is my time.

But first, Lord, let me breath. Then with Your help, I'll conquer the world.