Eighteen...

Perhaps it only happened to me? Or perhaps to many other pregnant women that year? On your birthday, I have the right to tell this story again. When we went into restaurants or Chinese bazaars, when people saw my belly, they would say something like, "It's the Year of the Golden Pig! You and the baby are blessed!"

The last Year of the Golden Pig (there's a Golden Pig every sixty years) was from February 18, 2007, to February 6, 2008. Many Chinese women, it seems, try to get pregnant in Golden Pig years because they want to be lucky. It's said that babies born in this year are "polite, straightforward, patient, modest, hardworking, happy, and honest" and are destined to have "many friends." I don't know if you, and all your fellow little piggies from that distant 2007, those children whose class we remember by name but not by face (Luna, Jan, Marc, Maria, Vera, Marçal, Laia, Abril...), turned out patient or polite or all of the above, but you turned out patient or polite or hardworking, but be honest and yes, yes, everyone, me first and foremost, wants to be your friend.

Tomorrow you turn eighteen, and adulthood seems mostly symbolic to us. Don't doubt it: you'll always remember turning eighteen. Today I can tell you that you'll never be as radiant as you were at eighteen, but it's good that you don't see it now. It's been a pleasure to cry (with laughter, almost always) with you all these years. Keep in the pockets of your heart (today, a little fuss is allowed) the color of the cake, the silly jokes, the gifts and songs that represent you, the awkward hugs from those unaccustomed to saying "I love you," the demands for photos, the dress, and above all, the future life you chose on November 2nd. Snake, this is a normal year, not like yours.