Today is my birthday. I've had a few of them before, but for some reason this one feels different. Of course, this is the first birthday I've had since becoming a father, but this feeling, I think, is larger than that.

The best way I can describe it is synchrony. Things feel to be happening at approximately the right time in various areas of my life. I don't feel like I've waited too long to start anything, in part by charging headlong into each phase: getting married, paying off debt, buying a forever home, starting a family. The Red Queen was right when she said you have to work as hard as you can just to keep up.

And so I'm filled with a sense of gratitude today. I never really felt that the world owed me anything, and yet I have such richness, that it feels like more than I deserve. And these two are a big part of it.

They, and the future they portend, are the best present I could ask for.