<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2173368376_122a67fe20.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-222" title="2173368376_122a67fe20" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2173368376_122a67fe20.jpg" alt="" width="451" height="338" /></a>
<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/johnspooner/">John Spooner</a></h5>
Do you remember when you were, oh, maybe 12 or 14, and you honestly thought you'd be a true grown up when you were 19?

And then how at 19 you thought you'd be a bona fide adult when you were 25?

But then, at 25, maybe you felt annoyed when you were carded at a bar, and when it seemed like you weren't taken seriously by the man at the car dealership, or by a senior colleague at the office.

<strong>Often, when we finally reach those benchmarks we've been anticipating, we find they're nothing like we imagined.</strong>

When it comes to getting older, we're not nearly as wise and balanced as we thought we'd be by a certain age—in many ways we still feel like our teenage selves, just in more tired bodies, and with some surprise grey hair.

When it comes to fitness, we might be able to run the distance we set as our original goal, but our bodies don't look and feel like we imagined they would by then. And when we finally get a job with the salary we used to dream of, we still feel more financially strapped and stressed than we thought we would.
<h4>The magic number, minus the magic</h4>
This is my 100th published post here on Halfway to Normal. Almost exactly six months ago, when I resuscitated my blog after a several-month hiatus, I wrote my 32nd post. I didn't know where this adventure would take me, I only knew I had stories to tell, so I had to give it a try and find out.

At that point, if I had paused to think ahead to my 100th post (which I didn't, but I can pretend), I would have been in awe at the thought of it. I would inevitably know <em>so much</em> about blogging by then.

By post 100, the whole process would be natural and seamless, right? I'd simply sit down four times a week to write my little observations and tell my little stories. I'd write quickly and efficiently, of course, baring my soul without a second thought, then clicking the "publish" button to send my thoughts out into the world.

Here's the reality (you can guess where this is going, I bet): Even though I <em>have</em> learned a lot about blogging and the so-called blogesphere—I'm not nearly as lost as I was—I still feel very much like a toddler. Maybe the more accurate analogy is that I feel like a teenager in a very foreign culture. Set loose with just a rudimentary language phrase book, no map and some spare change.

At post 100, I still don't have a blog roll published, to share with the rest of you links to the blogs I like to read. I still can't figure out how to get the header next to my rss feed button (the orange one that lets you subscribe to my blog) to work like it should. Which reminds me, I have <em>no idea</em> how to find out how many people have even subscribed to my blog, if they were determined enough to find the right button in the first place.

So I'm not tech savvy. But even when it comes to the actual writing, I'm still brimming with self-doubt every time I hit "publish" on a post that I think might be too sentimental, too "religious," too vulnerable, or simply <em>too something</em>. And I still put far too much weight on reader comments and statistics, as I try to figure out what people like and don't like.

In other words, I thought I'd be at a very different place by the time I reached this moment.
<h4>Celebrate, even if the occasion isn't quite what you imagined</h4>
I also thought I'd be all excited to do something fun and celebratory, like a big birthday bash, or a giveaway. (I guess other bloggers sometimes do these sorts of things when they hit this landmark.) I remember reading <a href="http://writerdad.com/blogging/happy-100/">the Happy 100 post</a> at <a href="http://writerdad.com/">Writer Dad</a>, a blog I really like. He posted a picture of balloons and asked people to leave comments sharing what they like about his blog, or what they think he could do better. I thought it was a great idea and even told him I might copy him when my big day came.

Now that I'm here, it's really tempting to just let the moment pass by without mention or fanfare, like someone who doesn't tell anyone its his 40th birthday.

But then, I realized that would be a bit like turning 21 and buying a bottle of wine to drink all alone. Even if 21 isn't all that you imagined it might be, it's still a milestone. There are still people around you, who care about you and feel like the moment is worth celebrating.

And there's lots to celebrate.<strong> Perhaps the most amazing thing about this moment, for me, involves thinking about all of you—the readers who one way or another found Halfway to Normal and continued coming back. </strong>

Even though I recently wrote <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=211">a post</a> about how numbers don't always mean that much, reaching this 100-post mark made me curious to see how many people have left comments on my blog in the past six months. Eight-eight different people. <em>Eighty-eight!</em> And only one of them is my mom (although she is, probably, my biggest fan). Most of those 88 people have commented more than once, gradually becoming a part of my community, even if I've never met them in person.

So <em>you</em> are the people I'm going to have this little celebration with, however humble it might be. It's important to mark occasions with others. It makes us more deliberate about looking back at where we were, and feeling a sense of accomplishment.

Marking a milestone, much like the start of a new year, also gets us looking ahead to what's next. And just today, "what's next" for Halfway to Normal pretty much knocked on my virtual door, in the form of a talented blog designer with lots of skills and good ideas. Essentially, I'm going to mark this milestone by getting myself a present.

I can't think of a more fitting way to celebrate, and I can't wait for you to be able to enjoy the results with me.