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*sigh.* I totally had an idea, and now, 'tis gone. That's ok, though, I'm a fairly adept rambler.

Stop all the presses, but yesterday was... a good day. I KNOW! And yet, I don't properly know why, but it just... was. So I'm not arguing. In fact, today hasn't been all bad either. Not a whole lot has been going on, but I rarely complain about that.

AHA! I got it! Social incest, that's what i wanted to talk about! Seriously, just took me like 10 minutes to come up with it, how ridiculous.

How funny is it to live in a little town? I mean, not little little, like a town where everyone know your business, but decently little, which is my experience, and since I like to speak from experience, I shall do just that. Monument is a truck stop with a bit of stuff in it. A couple fast food restaurants, a few little strip-style shopping areas, and schools. Recently we got a Wal-Mart and Kohls, which was a pretty huge development (figuratively and literally), because once upon a time the cool thing to do was hang out down by Safeway after school. And when we got the bowling alley? holy hot damn, that was a BIG deal!!

Our high school graduating class was a hair under 300, and it was the only high school in the district and town until... last year or the year before. Very very recent, anyway. So it's not a tiny town, no graduating class of 12 and we all grew up together from birth or anything of that ilk. STILL, though. Unavoidable social incest.

And I hope that term doesn't upset anyone. My friend Kas used the term to describe the town where she's from, and honestly, it's so bloody accurate I can't help but use it, and I generally don't mean it in a bad way. Generally. Everyone knows everyone else somehow, and even... (hold on, counting) 8 years after my class graduated, so almost 9 years since I left high school, I still bump into people. it's not that big a deal, I know, since parents and families still live in the area.

In the end, I suppose it's about watching everything grow up around you, watching families come together and expand from the kids in your computer class in 8th grade, seeing the little town that was once easily described as 'that town with the weigh station' turn into the town with, what, the third biggest Wal-Mart ever because they had the town rezoned half a dozen times. Watching parents turn gray and seeing little brothers and best friends grow beards. and then, BOOM.

Holy shit. The realization. We've grown up too. When the heck did that happen? Facebook is nothing but wedding announcements and pregnancy announcements, and endless photo albums of wonderful exotic vacations that ended with a romantic proposal. Announcements that friends are now aunties and uncles.

Um, what? I'm just one of those people, I guess, that sits down and works through these things without feeling like I'm missing out. 26 (27 in 4 months) doesn't feel old to me. How could it, I just admitted how old I am, and it's not embarrassing. Can't change it, so why bother?

I hope I hope I hope. Hope this doesn't sound sad, or bitter, or wistful. It makes me happy to see it all happen. Not afraid of my age, not afraid of change, not afraid of growing up. Ahhhhh the inevitability of it all. Come to terms with that, and the world is pretty awesome.

It's a little secret I carry around with me all the time, a tiny, glowing light that illuminates what I see. It never sputters or wavers, just glows. Maybe that's why I get asked all the time if I'm keeping secrets. I am keeping a secret, keeping it closely guarded and nearby. In turn, it keeps me warm, and deep down, regardless of what's going on here on the surface, it just keeps glowing. Even if I don't want to come across that way, it's still there.

I'm happy.

Shh, don't tell.