When I was a child, I always imagined 25 to be the age of sophistication. The age where you dress in pencil skirts  and smart jackets every day for work; have a well-decorated, tidy apartment; and eat things like poached eggs with hollandaise sauce for breakfast.

Then I turned 24 and realized that such sophistication was way more than 365 days away. I wear Converse laceless sneakers just about every day; have an apartment so untidy I started a militaristic, blog-documented project to de-clutter it; and frequently thrive off Strawberry Pop Tarts and Red Bull from the vending machine.

Popular, related search results that pop out of the Google machine when you type “25 years old” include:

• “turning 25 years old”
• “benefits of turning 25” – “The Magic Age for Car Insurance” (Heck yeah!)
• “25 year old crisis”
• “quarter life crisis”
• And: “Why does turning 25 feel like a midlife crisis?!”

All of which gives me such hope for this year.

Yesterday I turned 25. And contrary to my Googling peers, I’m not freaked out about it. Each day forward is a day closer to sophistication, right? (At least we hope so.)

The first few months of 2012 have been full, of both the good and the bad, the stupefying and the wondrous, and I expect my 25th year of life – one-quarter of a century old! – will follow that same path. But I’m excited for it. I’m excited for those challenges and those lessons, the happy moments and the hard ones.

So if you need me, I’ll be in my hopelessly cluttered kitchen, trying to make some hollandaise sauce.

Thank you all for the lovely birthday wishes yesterday. It touched my heart – I’m such a lucky gal!