As the years go by

It was just yesterday that I turned 15 years old. At least, it feels that way sometimes. In reality, I turned 31 this May. They are funny things, birthdays; they feel so final, so technical, don't they? One day you wake up and you are definitively 14, and by the dawn of a new day, you are suddenly 15. Something mysterious and magical happens overnight, and you feel bigger, smarter, perhaps a little more grown up. And it keeps happening. You wake up, morning after morning, and you’re suddenly 16, 17, 26. And each time, you feel a little bit wiser, a little more ready to tackle the world and your life. Even though nothing truly has changed overnight.
This year, I admit I feel 15 again. Sometimes I ponder aloud to myself, or sometimes to my plants in the garden (they are an eager audience, you see), and I think of all the things I would like to do or see. Or someday even become. I think about all of my various passions; animal rescue and husbandry, my artwork and projects, my writing, my thirst for adventure and travel. I think of all the places I have yet to witness, all the books I have not yet read that lie patiently on my shelves, waiting. And just like that, I'm 15 again, feeling too small for the world and my ambitions.
It's okay to feel like you aren't yet ready for something. Even if that something is a thing you really want to be ready for. You may look around you and think, “man, that person over there really has it all figured out,” but the truth is they don't. They are winging it just like you, making it all up as they go. There isn't a secret manual that you are given with every new birthday; a book that tells you everything you need to know about the next year of your life, and how to live it well. Oh, but wouldn't that be nice?
Instead, we putter along, making mistakes and learning from them (hopefully), using every new bit of trial-and-error information to guide us into the next choice, the next venture. With each passing birthday, we live and learn, compiling all the necessary information as we go. I do believe that 31-year-old me, while she struggles from time to time to tackle new things that arise in her current life, would handle being 15 perfectly. I wonder what I will learn in the next year of my life. I wonder in what ways my life will change, and how those changes will, in turn, change me.