Happy Birthday Brian!

Today was my brother's 25th birthday. Happy birthday, Brian!
Here's a pic (hope it works):



I remember 25...it was a mixed bag of blessings. On the one hand, I hit a major landmark in my life. On the other hand, I almost died that year from a brand new nut allergy that popped up out of nowhere. Oh, and then, there was the back injury and the missed year of work. The surgery totally didn't work either.

But then again, I got to spend almost a year away from the office recovering (read: watching movies, playing video games and eating lots of molasses cookies and drinking vanilla soymilk with Eileen) which was also one of the best years of my life, because I learned to really enjoy my own company. To this day, I'm still my favourite person to hang out with.

That was also the year of my very first real boyfriend. We eventually got married, and although in the end, things haven't worked out, I wouldn't trade those years because I've learned a lot and have grown a lot too. Of course, it's all a fairly new phenomenon, so I'm probably still in shock and denial and haven't truly begun to grieve or get mad about it, but at least just once, somewhere, I can look back to a time where I was grateful instead of bitter.