I was waiting in my party dress, expecting someone or something outside myself to declare me real, started, begun, on my way. But not yet. When I was ready. Which would apparently be never.

As of Tuesday, I've been around for a quarter-century. I can no longer claim to be in my "early 20s." And I'm pretty sure I can glimpse 30 just over the horizon (or maybe that's just nearly-30 HuffPost Women Editor Margaret Wheeler Johnson, sitting at the desk next to me).

Maybe this is just what I look like at 26. Sometimes fresh, sometimes utterly tired. Sometimes taut, sometimes slackening. In flux. Which is what we all are, always, whether we know it or not.