Transformative

The question of how I was going to define and recall this year came up recently, and I decided the most accurate word to describe the last 12 months was "transformative". Which is good. Not just because Transformers (tm) are cool, but because transformation is indicative of movement, usually either growth or decay. And I'm still alive, so I vote for growth. I am no longer the person I once was, but she is still me.
From my perspective inside my own brain, all of this seems trite; to feel a renaissance of myself swelling as I teeter on the brink of my third decade seems...contrived? At the very least, convenient in a deus ex machina kind of way. And yet, after a period of increasing and accelerating disorder, I seem to have emerged fresh from the fire, my old skin peeling off to reveal a new alloy composition, stronger and more flexible that my previous incarnation. And while my old form served me well and protected me through a cavalcade of hardships, and I excited to start walking around all the time in my new skin. I want to see how this new self I've managed to grow and forge drives.
Humans seem hell bent on finding and naming critical turning points: birthdays, anniversaries, various annual holidays. The return of Saturn gives people in their late 20's a three year window to feel a revelation of some kind, and yet here I am, googleing the exact cycle of Saturn. 29.4 years. That's right around the time when everything in my life broke, and I began to rebuild from scratch.
I believe that's why we have so many holidays and milestones, so no matter when our shift happens, when our big moment hits, we'll have a larger calendar to point to and say, see, it's special because of this!