On turning 25

Sorry for any readers who have been waiting for a post about my recent Birthday. As followers of this blog will know, I usually like to start off my posts with a photo or two, but for some reason there hasn't been much camera use lately. I completely failed to get any shots of our enormous Thanksgiving feast. Nothing much exciting happened on my birthday actual. Then in the happy chaos of celebrating my birthday AND engagement on Saturday with a night of bowling, the camera once again stayed in my coat pocket.
Since there are no pictures to display, I shall have to fall back on entertaining you all with scintillating prose. So what can I say about clicking over the quarter century mark?
The first thing that comes to mind is that my birthday marked exactly two and a half years since my arrival in this great land. I honestly can't believe it has been so long. Despite being now well integrated into society and having perhaps developed a passable urban Virginia accent, I still frequently feel like a foreigner. While undoubtedly my understanding of the American people has deepened immensely (especially after living through the longest Presidential Election in history with them) I know I will never be fully American. At twenty-five it so happens that I am probably as close as I ever will be to being truly half-and-half, not just by birth but in culture also.
Secondly, becoming engaged has certainly reversed my perspective on age. If there was any fear that I would start to feel old when I reached 25, that was all swept away when I put a ring on my young lady's finger. Now if anything I feel far too young to be taking such a grown up step. However, I'm certainly not too modest to say that I'm very proud of Kristal and myself for taking this step together, and the timing in both our lives feels though it could not have been better.
During a conversation at the bowling alley, we were pondering what age we might live to see. Somebody born at the end of the 19th Century would never have imagined they would live to be 115, but that is exactly what Maria de Jesus dos Santos has done. Who can how old the super-centenarians of the 22nd Century will be, and if any of us will be among them?