...to be

I'm 24 years old today.

By chance, I suppose, I happened to look up at the digital clock in my living room just as it had changed to midnight.
The thought of taking a picture occured the very moment that I saw its glow and I hurriedly scrambled to grab my camera from the bedroom, so that I could snap a few shots before the numbers clicked from 12:00 to 12:01.
Just as I checked the display screen on the back of my Sony Cyber-shot I found that none of the photos I'd taken had developed clearly. Each image was more blurry than the next. The result of a risky couple of settings I had chosen in haste.
Not allowing discouragement to get the better of me, I quickly spun the settings around to "normal" (no flash) and like magic the next two photos came out clear as day.
It didn't take but an instant to realize, however, that time had gotten the better of me.
12:00 had turned to 12:01 quicker than I could have ever imagined.
The clock moved forward and a minute had already passed in my 24th year, long before I was prepared for it.

Anger mixed with sadness and a sharp panic immediately shot through me. "I can't take one lousy picture?!" "This is how I start my new year?!" "Alone in a too-small apartment that I can't even afford?!" "Headed nowhere and with nothing to show for myself?!" "This is great! This is just great!" "What a wonderful Birthday?!"
These feelings continued to fire off inside my head like an amateur firework show for a quick spell until a newer, deeper sensation began to wash over me.

As quickly as these thoughts had popped into my head I began to experience the awareness of, How wonderful life is. What a truly profound gift to be given second and third chances. The picture I'd worried so much about taking had turned out perfectly. 12:01 speaks volumes more than just regular old midnight. I only needed to make the mistakes in order to realize this more phenomenal truth.
Just then I knew for certain what I had known but been fighting all along. Things will never turn out exactly how we expect them to. Events will never occur as planned. The years will come and go before we've gotten to opportunity to accomplish all that we'd hoped and dreamed for. But appreciation can be found in any moment, even one as terrifyingly real as the start of yet another year.
Fear can melt away into acceptance, if you let it. And acceptance, more often than not, can bring enlightenment that we'd never even seen coming.
There is so much more that I can do, so much harder that I can work. But I was meant to be exactly where I am tonight. I was meant to know that I am standing at the beginning of something new.

I'm 24 years old today.

I've lived 24 years on this Earth.
Thank you God.