Some time after I turned 25, I lost track of my age. Reaching the age after which I could rent a car without a surcharge -- that was my last notable milestone. And since then, as anyone who knows me will attest, asking my age usually elicits a wrinkled brow and frown, while I try to do the math, subtract my birth year from the current one, and come up with a number. More often than not, I'm unsurprisingly wrong with my answer. Oops!

It's not that I'm in denial; I'm not afraid of growing older. At least...I don't think I am. Age just doesn't seem like something worth remembering. I mean, aren't the experiences we recall more important than the year in which they happened? But then I find myself wondering. Unbeknownst to me, am I in the middle of a mental bell curve, somewhere between too-little-to-commit-anything-to-memory and too-old-to-make-anything-work-anymore? That notion is a bit scary.

Maybe that's why I have not yet quit my blog, despite the looooooong stretches of time between posts. As I'm sure is the case for so many others, this is another way for me to capture the moment -- click! -- before I zoom on past, sailing my way up the curve...or eventually, my way down.

So what do I remember? Well.........

Earliest memory. I think I am about two and a half. Maybe three. My mom takes me back to Taiwan to visit her family, and as we board the plane, the stewardess hands me a big envelope with all sorts of kid-friendly projects inside. There is the PanAm logo and a cartoon panda bear on the outside. Oh, and I get a shiny gold pair of wings to pin on my dress, too. (PanAm today? Long gone. Golden wings? Bryce just got his own pin over spring break.)

Elementary school. I fall off the pyramid in the tire playground and hit my chin. Terrified, I run back to the school, and through my tears, I can see all the other children fleeing away from bloody, messy me. Mom comes to pick me up, and I get into a shouting match with Tom over who gets to ride in the front seat. Big sister wins, little brother loses. I'm bleeding for Pete's sake! (Of course now, little bro Bryce usually pummels big sis Keira. Sigh...)

Middle school. Car ride with my best friend Elizabeth, and Tiffany's I Think We're Alone Now plays over and over and over and over and over and over.....

High school. Elizabeth and I are just itty bitty dorky freshmen, yet we somehow manage to get a ride home with a senior (and a boy, nonetheless!). We're giddy and giggly beyond the realm of normalcy. OMG.

College. I walk into Sweet Hall carrying two Jamba Juices. It's quite dim, which accentuates the glow of the many computer monitors. Row after row after row of guys programming, studying, snoozing. Finally, I see Felix and hand him his treat, hoping it will keep him going into the wee hours of the night. Feeling awkward among so many engineers, I hurry away.

Post-College. I'm constantly packing and unpacking, changing roommates, changing jobs, changing homes. Impatient and restless, I guess I'm "finding myself".

Marriage. On our mini-moon, Felix and I eat scrambled eggs with sundried tomatoes for the first time. Wow. That's....so good!

Kids. The floodgates open, and every day is something to try and remember because the babies-turn-toddlers-turn-children too quickly. The smell of their tiny heads and the sight of their wobbly bodies. The wriggly way they jump with joy and happiness. The hilarity of first words and, better yet, first jokes (so not funny that they're actually funny).

Perhaps someday, technology will allow me to download my mind, literally taking the jumbled mess of pictures and thoughts in my head and recording them for perpetuity. Or that might not ever happen, in which case I better make the most of what I have, while I have it, riding the curve towards whatever life experience comes next. Click!