Seven-thousand three hundred and four days...or twenty years

I finished my second decade today at 7:08 AM. I set my alarm to make sure that Iwould be awake when I ended my teenage years, and I sat in my bed and looked out the window, watching the sunrise brilliantly behind a feathery latticework of clouds, and I remembered.
I remembered my first memory ever. I was small and it was dark, and I was in my crib. I remember being scared of the dark, so I climbed up out of my crib and left my room to look for my parent's.
I remebered the feeling of my Nana and Pop's wrinklyskin on my hands when I was young, and how happy and lively they were before the years caught up with them.
I remembered my my father, before he cut his hair, and how he and my mother and I would all go up to Massachusetts together and spend the summer there while she taught voice classes.
I remembered the time my mom acidentally slammed my fingers in the car trunk up at Massachusetts...no harm done, because all's well that ends well.
I remembered holding a dinosaur in my hands and chasing a little girl around and around on the last day a rpeschool one year. I don't remember anything else about her though...
I remembered one of my happiest and most mysterious memories ever. It was an early summer evening, when the sky was just beggining to turn blue-black, and my mother had just left to go teach up at Shakespeare and Company. My father and I both missed her, so we went and kept ourselves busy by playing in the playground on 96th street in central park. He took me and put he on the tire-swing and spun me about so that all of the lights of the city mixed together the the trees and the velvet blue of the sky. I don't think the world has ever had wuite so much mystery for me as it did in that moment.
I remembered how my Pop used to hold me up and let me peek at microscope slides on his lap.
I remembered when I met an old friend, in preschool.
I remembered playing tag with my friends up at Shakespeare and Company when i was little, and I remembered to two-person bicycle, a house where a falling tree destroyed the porch, a cat, and a dog.
I remembered playing robinhood with my friend James, whom I still talk to today.
I remembered the day I stuck a rock in my ear in Kindergarden and I had to go to Dr. Larson's to get it taken out.
I remembered the day they took us out to the Park and celebrated the solar eclips by releasing thousands of balloons into the sky...and then took us inside and wouldn't let us look out through the windows because they were afraid we would ruin our eyes.
I remembered working on "the river" with my friends all throughout elementary school.
I remembered singing along in music class.
I remembered how i got my father sick with chicken pox right before my little brother was born, and I remember holding him after they brought him back from the hospital.
I remembered creating my own imaginary world for second grade (the seven-eights) and doing my first research ever, on meerkats.
I remembered studying under Doris in third grade, whom I met again last summer at the Museum of Natural History.
I remembered going up to the farm with MCS and milking cows and mucking stall.
I remembered the magicl winter of 1996, when it blizzarded so hard that school was snowed out for a week.
I remembered visiting Nanna and Pop in Huntington, in fall, the spring, the winter, and the summer. I would watch my favorite movie: the fantastic voyage, chase Cy around the yard, and we would grill steak.
I remembered the way the glass prsim in Nana and Pop's window split the light in a rainbow all over the couch.
I remebered their musty old chess set.
I remembered how I cried and cried because I had to leave Manhattan Country School to go to public school because we couldn't afford it anymore.
I remembered reading the Narnia books with Laura Shapiro and Anna Henschal. I met Laura again years later in Highschool, and we still talk from time to time.
I remembere the feeling of the warm sun on my face as I lay on the rock in central park.
I remembered Christmass, when the city glowed with lights, back when it snowed during the winter and we had to dust it off the Christmas tree before we brought it into the house.
I remembered going to Wagner, and meeting my friends Max and Alex.
I remembered all of my summers up in Montauk.
I remembered playing handball in the courtyard of Wagner.
I remembered having passover with my Nanna and Pop in huntington.
I remembered eating a piece of pizza on top of a freezing mail-box outside of school in teh snow, because once you left for recess, you weren't let back in untill it was over.
I remebered my first fencing lesson with Ury, who asked me what kind of champion I wanted to be and wasn't satisfied when I said, "A good one?"
I remembered the class trip at the end of sixth-grade, where my father nearly went insaine.
I remembered the year when i had five math-teachers. The first one was a substitute (they didn't have a permanent one). The second one assaulted a student and then ran away. The third one one dissapeared mysteriously only to reappear teaching at a private school years later. The fourth one was good, but dissapeared after two days, and school refused to explain why. The fifth one was only present for the last week of school, and gave us a test on the last day.
I remembered eighth grade, where I finally learned how to do math, and I remember the terror of taking a real admissions test for the first time.
I remembered my trip up to before ninth grade powell house where I met Laura Shapiro again.
I remembered the days before winters became warmer and rainier every year, when you could always expect snow.
I remembered the magic of ninth grade when I felt like I had been given another chance, and a clean slate. Back when being in highschool made me feel old.
I remembered the summer and fall when my Nanna and Pop died. I took me a while to realize just how much I missed them.
I remembered the girls I had at one point or another thought I was in love with (despite never really knowing them), before life and time taught me otherwise.
I remembered my first girlfriend, and everything that happened.
I remembered my first conversation with my friend Harry, and the first time I met (and read a haiku to) Veronica, the woman who would become his girlfriend.
I remembered the intensity of applying to college. It was so furious that it made you forget to enjoy highschool.
And I remembered the easy joy of senior year after I was accepted.
I remembered the shames and triumphs of the summer between highschool and college.
I remembered coming to college and the feeling of crossing a bridge and burning it behind me. Of meeting Kate and of leaving my home, familly and life behind.
I remembered the feel of her hair against my face afterward.
I remembered the relief and the terror of comming home for Christmas.
I remembered that spring whith all its pleasures and difficulties. I rememebered how prowd I was when i passed my test, and became and EMT. I remembered the relief at surviving general chemistry.
I remembered that summer, when I worked in the Museum and spent my weekends in Connecticut worrying over Kate.
I remembered what it felt like to come back and be a sophmore again.
I remembered the weeks leading up to my birthday and going to sleep the night before. It was like walking up to a mirrir and passing through it, or counting up to zero.
I sat and remembered.
Later, I went and saw the mummies and chines artifacts in archeological museum on a class trip before coming back to read all of my birthday messages from my friends. That night, I had dinner with Kate and Allie at a wonderful Italian restaurant, and went to see Casino Royal with my friends Allie, Jason, Robert, and Andrew and had a great time.
A good birthday. A good twenty years.