34 years of lessons

0- Memory's a little mushy on this year, but my mom says that talkingis preferable to screaming, which is what I did for the first eight months of my life. Luckily they did not send me back. I'm sure it crossed their minds.
1- When your cousin Jenny comes to visit, she might decide to hog your rocking chair. It's best to keep silently mad and pretend it's ok.
2- You can make your parents quit smoking if you say "no" enough.
3- When you're three in the hospital, they treat you like a baby, even if you know you are most definitely an adult.
4- When your mom says, "Don't ring the neighbor's doorbell," she also means, "Don't knock." And don't try to reason this with her, or get into a screaming match, you are going to lose.
5- Same shit, different day sucks, even in kindergarten, which was a year of hellish boredom.
6- A baby sister is pretty amazing when you're old enough to actually help
7- Life is not Little House on the Prairie.
8- Funerals and teacher's conferences are reasons for long weekends.
9- You didn't miss out on not having birthday parties the first eight years, and you only bother one more time with one of these ghoulish events.
10- When your little sister Molly wanders off at the shopping mall while you are in charge, you may have to get a ride home in a police car.
11- There are lots of other Saras in the world.
12- Everyone's mean in grade 7, even you.
13- Friends go away at the drop of a hat, especially if you have the wrong last name.
14- The oboe sounds like a dying duck when you are just learning it.
15- You'll always be a nerd.
16- Working a real job (even at $4.35/hr) is six million times better than babysitting.
17- High school was hell which you'd never want to relive.
18- College life is even better than you ever imagined it would be.
19- You can make new friends who are actually like you.
20- It's so sad to watch your beloved Grand Forks go under water.
21- You can move yourself across the country two times in one year. Just get behind the wheel and go!
22- Being one of the youngest in your class has definite perks- everyone expects you to act like a hooligan, and so you do.
23- Skiing in North Dakota does not correlate with skiing on a real mountain.
24- Finishing your doctorate is underwhelming.
25- Your first year of your first job is the hardest year of your education.
26- Living with someone is nice. Routine is nice.
27- A bad break up tears you apart for longer than you ever dreamed.
28- When the obgyn tells you that you need to have children before you are thirty, it's fine to ignore her.
29- You can travel the world alone, and you'll be just fine.
30- You can sell a house on your own. (With your sister Carrie's help.)
31- It's fine to quit a job and move to the other side of the world. Even if some people think you are crazy.
32- Earning $0 and traveling for a year is beyond any other experience money can buy or the money you lost by not working.
33- Communicating successfully in a foreign language while living in that country is exhilarating.
34- What is to come?