Age 4: An affinity for Fig Newtons, Cheetos, and Raffi songs (two of the three persists to this day)

Age 6: The start of an illustrative career as a student, fueled by a love of reading and an intense distaste for disappointing authority figures

Age 9: Relegated to Pumba’s lines when singing Lion King karaoke as the younger sister, unsuccessful attempts at authority as the older sister (with the exception of the one time I punched the kid on the playground for being mean to my brother)

Age 12: Convinced that everyone in middle school thought my gymnastics t-shirts were cool (And thankfully unaware that my giant glasses, braces, frizzy bangs, and willingness to answer questions in class might have conveyed otherwise.)

Age 14: Moved to a school district where no one knew about how I threw up during that 8th grade math test about fractions (cat’s out of the bag now…)

Age 16: A streak of unfortunate brushes between my car and the garage

Age 18: “Moved” to Boulder for college, though I came home about five times in the first ten days and nearly every weekend thereafter

Age 20: Spent a semester in Brussels, taking history classes with no relation to my major and eating a glorious amount of waffles and chocolate

Age 21: Started watching The Office at Devin’s house every week

Age 21, five months later: The (startling, at the time) realization that this was dating (Devin, to this day I appreciate your heroic levels of patience.)

Age 22: Graduated from the University of Colorado with high distinction -included just for you, Mom- and a finance degree

Age 22, 23, and 24: Watched my jobs disappear to company insolvency, division layoffs, and mergers, respectively

Age 24: Happily engaged to my best friend (!!!)

Age 25: Ran a marathon AND hit that elusive “one year without the company collapsing beneath me” job mark in the same year. Woo hoo!

Age 26: TBD, but it’s going to start off celebrating our marriage with the people we love, so I have high hopes