Twenty-Three

Today I’m twenty-three. Five years ago, if you’d told eighteen-year-old me that I’d be spending my twenty-third birthday engaged to a graphic designer, with a fifteen-month-old on my hip and a nursing degree on my wall, I would have laughed. That girl had plans. Graduate, travel, maybe move to New York, definitely don’t get serious with anyone until at least twenty-five.

Twenty-Three

But here’s the thing about plans: life is so much bigger and scarier and more beautiful than anything you can imagine at eighteen. Five years ago I thought I knew what love felt like. I thought I knew what tired felt like. I thought I knew what happy felt like. Turns out I didn’t know anything.

Sophie gave me my first birthday present this morning - a half-chewed cracker she’d been working on, presented with the kind of pride usually reserved for diamond necklaces. Marcus laughed so hard he almost dropped his coffee. And I sat there thinking: this is it. This is what twenty-three looks like. Messy and perfect and nothing like I planned and everything I didn’t know I wanted.

Next year I’ll be Mrs. Hartwell. This year I’m still Elena Vasquez, but barely. I’m becoming someone new, and it’s terrifying and thrilling and I can’t wait to see who she is.