I have officially celebrated the last birthday of my 20’s.

Like any birthday, it’s foisting reflection on me with the distinct feeling of otherness the day holds. Even normal Sunday activities are tainted by it. Everything feels like it should be saturated with meaning – every aspirin ingested a symbol for the slow decline in my body’s ability to naturally numb pain. Every slight moment of nausea is the physical manifestation of the chaos of memory stirred up by the relative position in space of the earth to the sun.

Mnemomancy: the conjuring of past lives using the alignment of the stars.

So I’m using that strange feeling – the one that lingers as one’s mind acclimates to an arbitrary but necessary uptick in demographic for the few days where recalling one’s age doesn’t involve recalling what year it followed by a brief moment of arithmetic – to write a story.

One that can only be written on this day and the few days to come before this feeling fades.

Dear 29,

Please be good to me. We only have 365 short days together before I leave you and all of your kin behind for good.

Love,

Kelly