Every year for the past three years I have written a blog about my birthday.

It is nice to have a record of who I was, what I liked, and how I was feeling as I entered each of my “new years.”

This year, I missed it. I was gone for part of my birthday, traveling for fun and for business and thus the writing of who I am at twenty-seven just got lost in the shuffle.

It is a few weeks late, but I still decided to undergo the endeavor of writing a birthday blog, lest I let the tradition die after it had just begun.

In past years, I wrote about my favorite candy or current obsessions. I wrote some about my cat, my family, my friends, and my community. With those blogs open in another tab, I sit here at twenty-seven years old, writing another year of what turns out to be much of the same “me.”

At twenty-seven, my odd new obsession is Nerd Gummy Clusters and fletcher. That is my current candy and artist of choice to come home to after a long day, vibing and snacking.

At twenty-seven, my cat is still my best friend. I hope she always will be.

At twenty-seven, I cry a lot. I always did, but I recently restarted therapy and now I burst into tears at the most inopportune moments. (It’s all good, just healing.)

At twenty-seven, I have now attended every Aggie sport under the sun and am a top fan of Aggie softball. I have planned multiple trips to see as much of the sport as I can!

At twenty-seven, I have lost many of my past hobbies… instead I put my full self into people and work. I am trying to regain the things that used to bring me joy while still nurturing my connections, new and old.

The past year was more full of love and joy than I knew was even possible. I changed, stretched, and grew, but I also lost a lot of who I was by burying myself in school. I completed comprehensive exams, crashed and burned, dusted myself off and started again. I had COVID for a week and took my first break from school in nearly a decade. Moving forward, I hope that all of my days are filled with love.

In my twenty-seventh year, I hope to defend my dissertation proposal and maybe even my dissertation. I won’t graduate, but I will be close.

In my twenty-seventh year, I see the future far less clearly than I did in my twenty-sixth. Everything is blurry. But I do know one thing. Twenty-seven feels like it will be the start of a whole new chapter. And just like any good book, this chapter will be full of both hope and heartbreak, joy and sorrow, new connections and new distances.

Truthfully, I don’t think I am ready for any of it. Maybe that’s a good thing. As a friend told me, feel the fear, but do it anyway-- leave no stone unturned.

Happy birthday, Delaney. This one was hard, but take the time to celebrate anyway. Feel the pain fully so that when it comes, you can also feel the joy. I love you.