The number arrived before I did.
For years I had thought age would be understood gradually, as if the mind would be given notice, as if each year would explain the next before it came. But the body crosses certain lines without waiting for consent.
A hand looks older before the self has agreed to be older. A stair becomes information. A name one once wore lightly begins to sound historical in another person’s mouth.
Nothing dramatic happened.
Only this: the future stopped being a place I could speak of as if I were not already inside it.