Twenty-Three

I turned 23 today. I don’t look or feel particularly 23, whatever that’s supposed to mean. The age seems arbitrary—too old to be young, too young to have anything figured out. One of those in-between numbers that doesn’t register as anything special until someone points out you’ve been alive for twenty-three years and then suddenly it lands.

I thought about what I’d say about a year older, a year further into this thing. Nothing comes to mind that feels true. You don’t wake up different. You don’t suddenly understand things you didn’t yesterday. You just keep going, older by accident.

Actually, that’s not quite right. I can feel the difference in the accumulation. More memories stacked up. More patterns. More things I know won’t work because I’ve watched them fail before—in my own life, in other people’s, in things I’ve read or watched. Whether that counts as wisdom or just fatigue, I’m not sure.

Anyway. Here I am. Twenty-three. Might as well sit with it for a while.