It's a Slow Climb Headed Back to the Sky

In Scotland yesterday, I bought a checkered tie made from 100% Scottish wool. Today, I'm pleased to wear it to church on my birthday.
I turn 21 today, in a country where the drinking age is 18. Good thing I’m not much of a drinker, or I’d feel as if I’d missed out on something. But I don't.
I'm fighting the temptation to be one of those people who, the second they turn 21, complain about how they're getting so old, and then once they're in their 40's are like, "Don't call me sir! I'm still young!" No use in denying your youth or your age as far as I can tell. So with a smile on my face, I conclude the first 10% of my 20's. I never thought I'd celebrate my 21st in Great Britain, but such is the nature of life I suppose. You never know what's coming... and time won't slow down.
My song of the summer "Collapsible Lung" is taking on more meaning for me every day. I'm getting by with my collapsible lung... I'm getting older. 21 is a big jump from 20, and I'm closer to my last years than ever before. But it's a good time 100% of the time. I wouldn't want things to stay the same forever. We were designed to move; to move through space (backpacking in Europe?) and through time (every new birthday). I'm like a ladder with a missing rung, and it's a slow climb headed back to the sky.
Life can be challenging, to say the least. Sometimes we feel as if everything useful in us is somehow damaged. Like we're ladders with missing rungs. But with every year that goes by as my age creeps up the graph, I see more and more that the climb to the sky, while painfully slow for us, has already been scaled by Christ.
On the last day, he will raise our aged and decaying bodies to life, making them perfect and new. This gives me special hope these days when my hairline seems to be receding faster than ever.
21 is a special year that I'm happy to begin here in Europe. And while it's a slow climb headed back to the sky, it can be a memorable and enjoyable climb as well. Time won't slow down... And while I'm still a young man by all means, that won't always be the case. Someday, Lord willing, I'll be breathing deep with my collapsible lung, thinking of the places I've been and the people I've met. And I'm certain, if and when that distant day comes, I'll think back on my times in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and all the people who I shared this special semester with as a part of this slow and unsteady climb headed back to the sky.