The twentieth-fourth dilemma

It has been a week or two. Plus a fews days. Well. It has been a little longer than usual. Many things have happened since, actually - what, yes, will be the subject of another encounter.

But, yeah, you are right, my friend. I once again aged.

Amidst some of the craziest times of the winter, in the height of a very eventful week, between a step out of two onto my future, I reached another milestone, so to speak, becoming a proud 24 years old citizen.

I recall back in my childhood finding 24 years old's to be rather aged people, who lived way ahead in the adulthood, while, yes, sporting out the glory of the - matured - youth.

I now look at myself and still see the same child back from those days - and, no, I am not talking about genetics or remarkably good skin.

It is, perhaps, the very wrongful impression of oneself, caused by the unnoticed passing of the years when it comes to one's own figure.
A lot of wrinkles it will take, I reckon, for me to realize how time has flown and hit me.

Looking around, all of my friends have become adults. They have their worries, their struggles, even their own family in some cases, regardless possibly being well incipient when it comes to building their own life. They are surely young, all right, but not the immature, puerile, spoiled infant the mirror insists showing me and who I do not feel like letting go of.

While I step into the middle of this third decade of mine, this Peter Pan dilemma keeps annoying me, alongside the subtle realizing that, indeed, some things may be just slipping through my hands.

Still, no much is lost, I think.

Putting aside all these mazy thoughts I myself cannot quite get straight, it is a new personal year dawning, and it does inspire me hope and excitement.
24 has always been, somehow, a milestone (and now using the term in its proper meaning) in my view. Maybe it has pointed somewhere as the location of some treasure or some candies, something of that sort. It just feels… interesting.

The now gone 23rd was quite an impressive period, must I note here, and this is something I only now can conclude, by being able to give it an - quite a hasty - overlook (that time will surely recreate with a more profound twist every once in a while. I know how the hands of time mould the way).
Although such year did not witness much progress in some fields, it was, all the way, the glowing arena where many dreams and wonders were witnessed, where lands were explored, where hands touched, where worlds were ruled and where stars shone, blindingly bright.
And where love exploded.
And where love murdered love.

My utter, heartfelt thankfulness to everyone involved, for as long as my memory can carry the good recollections.

Let the 24 start and see what can I make out of it.

Let us all be fresh and young.
And step forward and beyond.