On July 16th, 1979, at 2:27pm in the Stanford Hospital, I popped my head into this world. And, from that moment, I couldn’t get enough of it.

In California, right after a baby is born, the nurse is required to put sliver nitrate drops into its eyes, to guard against infection. But those drops temporarily blur the baby’s vision, and the nurse, telling my mother that she didn’t remember ever seeing such an observant newborn, couldn’t remember a baby who was trying so hard and so instantly to take it all in, waited until the last legal minute to put those drops in my eyes.

That’s pretty much been the story of my first twenty-five years: cramming in as much as possible, trying to fit it all in. Take, for example, just this last year:

I got some excellent work done, and realized how very much more I have to do.

My heart broke, then mended into something more full and whole.

I made a mess of things by being constantly full of shit, and have been working on cleaning up the mess day by radically honest day.

I had some wonderful times and some horrible times.

I had some trying times and some rewarding times.

And as much as there were some things I’d do differently on a second pass, I wouldn’t possibly want to give up any of it.

Looking back, I can’t see how it all fit into just one year, or, really, how it all fit in to just twenty-five of them. Which, frankly, is sort of a relief, because I have at least that much to cram into the next twenty-five.