For the past several years, I’ve written on or around my birthday to reflect on the year that has past. This year, I’ve been putting it off. Because there’s a lot to say about a hard year. A bad year.

Struggles make us grow, so I don’t think that any hard year is ever unnecessary. This one was hard for lots of reasons. The first year away from my family. The first year of my career. The first with all this responsibility. Of what finally feels like actual adulthood.

We’ve been pretending to be adults since we were 18, and I don’t know if we’ll ever stop pretending. But as I get older, no matter the struggles, I feel a sense of contentedness, as if I am coming home to myself and growing into my personality. (Where I don’t have to pretend that I think bars are fun, and where I can wear blazers with leather patches on the elbows. Let’s be serious, I was born to be a middle-aged English professor, preaching about William Blake and John Milton to teenagers who are taking the class to fill a requirement for graduation. But I digress.)

Aesthetically speaking, I think this personality I’m learning to become so proud of was made from this season of my birth, for autumn. I was made for cool breezes and falling leaves, for warm scarves and hot coffee in ceramic mugs, for mittens and leather bound books. This is the season where I thrive. Where I can embrace the person that I am and the person I can and want to be.

My birthday, then, has always been one of my favorite days, but not for obvious reasons. It has always been a signifier of my favorite season. Of late autumn and holidays. Of good food, with even better company. Of cold days and warm bellies, sitting in a room with a dog at my feet and lights glistening through frosted windows.

As I get older, I appreciate this even more, recognizing just how precious the last three months of the year really are. Because holidays are different in your adulthood. They’re less about novelty and more about nostalgia. About beginnings and endings and everything in-between.

For a long time, I thought adulthood was about losing things. About looking back at all the things you used to have and realizing it would never be like that again. But that’s a silly way to look at it. Yes. You will lose things. I have lost many things. I have lost best friends, many of them. I’ve lost memories that I wish I could get back. And in light of losing these things, you realize all that you have left. The loss magnifies the remaining.

Life is not a series of “ors.” I thought it was. Pittsburgh or New York. High school friends or college friends. Public relations or English. Rather, it’s the “ands.” And on my 24th birthday, I realize there is no need for dichotomies. I can have all of these things. Pittsburgh and New York and Earl and Stephanie, my Ironmen and my Bluffsketeers. And. And. And.

I look forward to 24. I look forward to getting older and having new experiences, finally growing into this old soul I’ve been carrying around. I look forward to collecting events and emotions and relationships. All the things that will make this life full and rich and warm. All the “ands” I could ever want.