I spent Day 1 of my 35th year weeping, and by the end of the day, after having made a fool of myself with my ex, taking inventory of my dead father’s property, watching an elderly man swim back and forth between the buoys at the bay, and closely investigating my aging and makeup-less face–finding my father’s browline, my mother’s awkward mouth and weakening chin–I had to admit that the accumulation of life that happened between 34 and 35 fundamentally changed something in me. I feel like glass–some days bullet proof, some days stained, some days untempered and used in a diving mask.