today is my 24th birthday

i forgot that today is when my driver's license expires too. i really wanted to retake my photo when i got my new one - since i've had this one for the last 6 years. then i started thinking about how sucky going to the DMV is and i decided to just renew it online. sure, i'm 18 year-old kidlaura and wearing my HS hoodie, smiling like i've got the world figured out - but hey, i really really hate going to the DMV.
i also got to thinking about where i was in life during the time my last license was issued. fall of my senior year in high school (cue Vitamin C's Graduation song). i no doubt went to lunch with Andrew (my DBF*) and it was probably to chicken express where i got a kid's meal. we had likely blasted jessica simpson's "with you" and sang at the top of our lungs around 2.5 times by the end of the day (i can let my hair down, i can say anything CRAZY!!)...he always drove my pimped out explorer (sub woofer, what what) because i suck at driving. we also have the same great taste in cheesy pop songs to this day. every time we hear that little party in the USA jingle, we get each other on the horn. anyhow, after school volleyball practice probably made me hella tired (because even though i fake-ran, it was still hard work). i probably had a conversation with Elizabeth (my other best friend) about how scared i was that i wasn't going to get into UT and it was the only college i wanted to go to and wah wah wah...calculus blows...wah wah wah (this signifies tears)..ooo he's got his shirt off...blah blah. she'd always tell me that things would be ok and then we'd eat watermelon laffy taffy (the kind with the seeds that were pretty much just black chunks of sugar*) together in her mustang with the sunroof open watching football practice. then we'd gossip about boys (those being her bf at the time and this dude i had met at church camp that i had a monster giddy-school-girl crush on*). those were the days,

you know, the days before husbands and babies and "real" jobs and rent checks. back when those things were hopes and dreams that were distant enough not to terrify you or leave you crying yourself to sleep in the fetal position on a bed with no sheets while a psycho-chihuahua licks your face raw (i know you know what i'm talkin' about...no? maybe it's just me). i digress. but i guess what i mean is, even then i didn't know how great i had it. the tears i cried then were about stupid crushes that i wanted to be more than they were...and making sure i went to the right university so i could become an adult someday. i had it easy.

but then, aren't the tears that i cry now over the same things? a broken heart and fear of heading in the wrong direction? yup. which should really piss me off right? cause it's like GREAT, i'm still a drama queen who stresses over the same things with slightly different variables. but it also just makes me laugh at myself. i treat "finding the one" like i'm a leprechaun trying to find a coveted pot-o-gold and my future like some sort of cosmic crap-chute. i acknowledge that God is in control but i secretly resent that truth because i think if i could just get that ONE thing that i want...

but one day i'll have the things that i wanted in the previous paragraph just like how now i have the things that i needed the paragraph before (notice, i got what i needed, not exactly what i wanted). there will always be something else to cry about, cause we all know i'll do it. it's just nice to know that even when i do have bad days filled with worries and fears that i'm always surrounded by such happiness. singing in the car with andy, munching on laffy taffy with liz, happy houring with KH, cracking jokes in my cube with CC, watching my best friend walk down the aisle and stand next to her while she says her vows...it's the things that make up your everydays that get you through your life stages gracefully (although sometimes not so much graceful as it is clumsy).

so even though i'm not at all where i thought i'd be or who i thought i'd be by the age of 24, i can still say that i am happy and i love my everydays.

love/miss/namaste.
ps - sorry for the heavy post. might be a quarterlife crisis. or just a stirring in my soul. who knows.

*DBF = dude best friend, we were basically inseparable. we made shirts with our faces on them and everything, we were that cool.
*I had 7 cavities that year. I wish i was kidding.
*I am pretty sure most of our "relationship" was made up in my head, which explains why I'm so neurotic today. I will think twice before letting my kids to go church camp...
jk. sort of.
also, just another example of how USUALLY, the dudes that I LIKE either a) don't live within a 100 mile radius of me, b) don't really give a crap about me, or c) all of the above at the same time. burn.