The other day my dear friend Betsy was digging through some of her newspapers from college and she found this:

I didn’t even remember that this article existed.  During my freshman year of College 1.0, I was apparently featured in our college newspaper as Howard Payne’s resident BMX Bad Ass.  I mean, they couldn’t actually say that I was a “Bad Ass,” because Howard Payne doesn’t stand for that kind of tomfoolery, but nevermind that! It’s just semantics!

The weirdest thing about this article (which I haven’t actually seen, I’ve just seen this picture Betsy sent me), is reading actual quotes of things I actually said when I was 18 years old.  I am, for the first time in my life, incredibly glad for the human brain’s capacity to forget.  Can you imagine what life would be like if we were all fully conscious of how incredibly insufferable we were when we were 18 years old?

For those of you who can’t see, the article starts out with a gnarly list of every injury I’ve ever had. “‘I face planted a couple of times. I pulled my hip out of socket.  I’ve separated my sternum.  One time, I sent my braces through my lip, and I think seven is the count on the broken ribs,’ Howard Payne University Freshman Sarah Huff said, listing the many injuries she incurred from her five years spent BMX racing.”

I go on to elaborately explain all of my personal feelings on being “a tomboy.”  Then I proceed to drone on for paragraphs about how awesome it is to ride like a guy/beat guys/win in general.  The only way I could have seemed more obnoxious in this article is if I would have actually balled up my fists and beat my chest at some point, proving no man, not even Tarzan, had anything on me.

Dad and Me: State Champs 1999 (Point: Dad!)

While I was out dancing with Sarah1 and the girls last night, at one point Sarah1 yelled, “I NEVER THOUGHT MY THIRTIES WERE GOING TO BE THIS MUCH FUN!”  All three of the girls I was with, all of whom are in their 30s, agreed with each other that, yes.  It only gets better.  Oh, God, does it ever get so much better.  Last night, that information felt like a bit of a revelation.  Light bulbs going off everywhere.  This only gets better! And now, today, with the retrospective clarity afforded to me by a vintage newspaper article, the revelation now feels like more of a, “Well, DUH. WHAT CHOICE DOES IT HAVE?”

Thank God we’re not all 18 anymore.
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Today is SisterKaty’s 23rd birthday.  Happy birthday, Katy.  It just keeps getting better.