Welcome to your 20s, bro.

Ending your second decade of life can be a little anticlimactic. You're not a teenager anymore, yet you're still not old enough to drink. You're not quite a kid anymore, yet you're not exactly an adult either. The two oh is kind of like the compression end point of a spring; all those awkward teen years of discovering who you are, who God is, and what life's all about - pushing, hardening, refining. It's the trailing remnants of a childish era, the fresh advent of a new one that you've only heard is supposed to be the prime of your life. Now, the day you shed your adolescent innocence is also the day you're expected to suddenly shed your naiveté too - to spring forward and all at once, mesh your teenage mistakes with your barely developing beard (in your case, literally bare-ly) of wisdom and think, talk, and walk like a wizened adult.

This is us scrubbing in our newly remodeled kitchen.

And in its own way, graduation feels the same. Four years of tuition, four years of tempering through problem sets, semester projects, grueling allnighters, the best possible engineering education in the known universe (or so they stressed incessantly at the graduation ceremony). Four years of spiritual awakening, reclaiming, reshaping. Push, harden, refine. Brand new shiny degree. Now, it's the time to make money, change the world, know where you're going to be, what you're going to do. It's time to bring His abundance and justice to the destitute and build His Church. Yet, I'm stuck at home, jobless, and on the wrong side of the medical school application process when I'd rather be in Berkeley, financially independent, and confidently kicking writer's block in the butt.

We know what we've overcome and we know what we dream for, yet what do you do with the present? We've been thrown off the first train and it's up to us to catch the next one. Oh, how difficult it is to grow up, to thrive in the inbetween, the process. But the time between times is also a time in itself. It's the time for waiting, and it's the time for faith. So brother, let's wait, remember, and believe.

Love you, dewww. Even if you never look like you actually maybe kinda sorta like me a little bit too.

No matter what we've already experienced or are experiencing, His best is always still to come. In the midst of the world's expectations, our parents' expectations, our own expectations, may we have ears that are keen for only His. So, here's to transition and its process for us both. Happy birthday, little bro.