Birthdays

I am fifteen. Like it usually does, my birthday has reminded me of how strange the passing of years is (as well as how loved I am and how much love I have). Every year I expect that I will magically be stronger, wiser, and generally better due to the fact that I'm a year older. Then I discover that nothing has changed suddenly.
Rather, I have changed by degrees so small that I myself don't even notice until a few years later. The change from twelve to thirteen, thirteen to fourteen, and now fourteen to fifteen has been marked only by my anticipation of the number that now defines how long I have lived on this earth. I have been much the same from the 10th of January to the 11th. But I am not the same person I was three years ago. If that person and who I am today were put together side by side, they wouldn't be recognizable as the same person (save by physical appearance).
So, all I can do is realize that wisdom is not marked by how much time passes by, but rather by what we do with that time in making ourselves better. And wait for my sixteenth birthday, when I will obviously be so much wiser, because who isn't when they turn sixteen.