Two Decades Later...

Yesterday, I turned 20 years old. Which brings me to my next point:

Holy Shit.

So this means that I am no longer able to blame anything on my teenage naivete, or to say that I was to young to know better, or to put things off for tomorrow. Nope, the time is now, and it's fucking scary.

I had a cinematic moment yesterday around midnight... I caught my reflection in the mirror and just stared. I had lived for two decades- and I took stock of all I had accomplished within those years. Certainly not many people my age had ever had an original composition performed in front of leading established liturgical composers, travelled to third world countries to help the poor mountain people of the Dominican Republic. Many my age are not fortunate enough to have a job that earns them some amount of respect and authority, not to mention, for my age, a decent wage.

In spite of this, I felt vaguely hollow; like there was still so much work to be done. I have only completed a year of college, and there are still so many lives I haven't touched in some way. Granted, I have done more than most, but retrospect, what had I really done?

My name is David Cooper. I have lived two decades, and I haven't even started.