It's funny. Today is my birthday. I am no longer 30.

Now I'm officially 31.

I can't wonder what this means for me. Should I be a better person now? Do I gain some kind of new responsibilities at 31? Am I supposed to gain a new perspective or insight into the world?  The problem is that I just don't know.

And on top of all of this, I feel like I just turned 16. So I'm not quite sure how I got to be 31 or how I am supposed to behave at 31. It seems like a big important number but at this point, that's all I've got.

Somehow, I feel like I just learned how to drive and I can still remember the sense of freedom mixed with the weight of responsibility I had the first time I got to drive by myself. It was scary and wonderful all at once.

Since turning 16, I've experience this rush of scary and wonderful a few other times like when I moved from Walla Walla to Springfield, Ohio to attend Wittenberg for college and I didn't know a single person. Or when I decided to volunteer for a year after college in Washingotn DC in the Anacostia neighborhood, a neighborhood plagued with crime, drug use and the highest rates of new HIV cases in the city. A neighborhood where I was regularly the only white person I saw and in the winter the program I worked for would send me home before it got dark.

Then there were less scary but still nerve wracking moments like starting my first real job at Georgetown University and finding roommates through Craig's List. But many of these moments are to be expected in the trajectory of one's  growth from teenager to adult.

The moment that I didn't expect is the one that I am still living in and at a newly minted 31 I find myself incredibly thankful for this. Living abroad has given me a freedom to explore the world that State-side I never could have imagined possible but this has been balanced, grounded and tempered with the responsibility of teaching, exploring a new culture and learning a new language.