"When I grow up, I want to be 28..."

When I was about 7 (Miss Carpanzano's class... I must have been 7) I remember writing this sentence in my writing book... "When I grow up, I want to be 28..." No elaboration. Just that one simple phrase. Almost eerie... And now - with my birthday swiftly arriving, I am finally about to turn 28...! So with this birthday, unlike other years, comes some sense of magic (or even hope? expectation? Who knows! MYSTERY!)

28 has always been a special number to me... It's my lucky number, for a start... It features in the name of my favourite teenage-years band (28 Days)... "2828" was my pin number on my bank account for many years (it's not now though, so don't even try and rob me!) When I was 14 (which is half of 28, by the way :P) I "planned" to get a tattoo of an "8-ball" but instead of just an "8" ball it was going to be a "28-Ball" (*ahem* it's a good thing we don't always commit to the tattoos we think we want during adolescence!)

Even deeper, there are many symbolic theories made around the number 28... The Dr. Allendy observes that the number 28 combines cyclic times: 4 and the evolutionary times: 7. "It is the spiral of the evolution unfolding among the perpetual cycles of the nature; it is the being progressed in the permanent oscillations of the Cosmos"...

There are 28 days in a moon cycle (and ANYONE who knows me knows how significant a moon cycle is to me!!!) and thus 28 days would have been the number of days for which Buddha contemplated under his little Fig Tree... Brahmans believe there are 28 Angelic states above the human beings... There are 28 different animals in the Chinese zodiac... There are 28 days in a natural "Biorythym" or emotional cycle (I track these regularly... interesting stuff, if you've -never heard of them before maybe you should look it up!) In Gematrian beliefs (where numbers are assigned word "values") the number 28 represents the word and virtue of "GOOD"...

And... one of my favourite kooky little 28 facts is that the age of 28 is the age at which our bodies actually physically stop "growing" and thus we are considered biologically "fully developed" once we hit 28... any bodily actions from then on in is just maintenance and repair-work, there's no "new" growth or development to any parts of our bodies...

28 is also the age at which (according to Astrology) most people experience their first "Saturn return" (around 28-29 years of age...) It's a period in one's life considered to bring a whooooooole lot of change and restructuring... and basically it's where Saturn returns to the exact same place it was at the time you were born...

Thus, in a way, "28" could be considered the age at which physically (ie. stop of further growth) and cosmically (Saturn returns) we are told "it's time to grow up"... How ironic? Given that little "out-there" statement I wrote at the age of 7 (which, is a quarter of my age at 28... *cue hippy mystic music*!!!)

I take it therefore that me turning 28 can ONLY mean AWESOME things... Already leading up to this year have I put many a wheel in motion, changed several attitudes, developed so much as a person and mastered the art of discernment and discard of drama... Now seems the time when everything will come together, and I may quite possibly be able to say "I've officially 'grown up'..."

So bring on 28... with all your power and glory and whimsy... How magically special I feel to be turning 28 this year...! Hurray for 28 :) Bring it on!

Peace :)