I went downstairs for a couple of seconds, to be outside in the Portland air as it struck midnight. I was humming “Only The Good Die Young” to myself. I thought about texting folks but didn’t. After all, in a cut line, “What can you say? What can you possibly say?” But I cut the line too, and just thought it. “Play the moment without the line.”

And then, just like that, I was 26. And I tell you, I feel so immensely relieved about it. I think all my birthdays after this are going to get easier and easier. I stood downstairs in the Armory lobby, and laughed, and said “Thank God that’s over.”

Thank God this is beginning.