Looking back and realizations

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As my birthday draws closer I can't help but realize how much everything has changed in my almost 29 years of life. I can't help but realize that everything around me is still constantly changing. I feel like I shouldn't remember 20 years ago, I remember there was a point in my life where I couldn't, and now I do, because 20 years ago I was almost 9 and in the 3rd grade. I can't remember every detail from my childhood I just remember certain things, and sometimes the things I remember shouldn't play a significant role in my memories but they do, other things that should don't. Sometimes I understand why I remember, and other times I don't. I remember seeing Home Alone 2 in theaters and laughing so hard I almost couldn't breathe. I remember Friday's were my favorite day of the week and not just because it was the end of school for the week, but because that was family day. We would load into the car and go out to eat usually Burger King on the way my brother and I would drive my dad crazy by talking baby talk saying what we were going to get from where we were going in baby talk, it drove him bonkers, and my mom would then join in and we would be laughing at my dad's annoyance. After BK we usually went to Aldi and loaded up on grocery's for the week, we would sometimes go to Meijer where I would ride the penny horse, or we would go to Hills where my brother and I got a soft pretzel. We would usually go to the dollar tree where my brother and I could pick one thing out. At Aldi we each got to pick a cereal and a snack. Then on the way home we would stop and see my dad's mom, when there my brother and I went and played on the playground because my mom didn't like us inside with all the smoke. I remember so much and yet so little about my childhood. I will hear people talking about certain events that I probably should remember but I don't. I remember there was a time when all of the Disney stars were older than me, and now they're all younger than me. I'm trying to figure out when that happened. It feels like it happened almost over night. I know I'm not old, but sometimes it feels like it when I realize just how old everyone around me is. It feels like I grew up in a completely different time from now, but I didn't. Yes things were a lot different, but not so different that everything around me seems so new in comparison to how things were when I was a kid. It's amazing what even 10 years can do. I was an 80's baby and a child of the 90's and a 00's teenager. I remember these changes happening, they were so subtle at first, but when I look back 20 years it feels like it all happened so quickly. Time seems to go so slow when you're going through life, but when you look back it really did fly past. Sometimes I wonder how I got to where I am now, and I wonder if even one little thing changed where my life would be, because it only ever takes a moment. Had I had even one thing happen differently in my life I could be a different person. Our lives are impacted just as much by the little moments as they are by the big moments in our lives, or so I believe. Those little moments definitely mean more than most of us realize. Every little thing makes us who we are. As I reflect on my past, because I do that a lot lately, I think it has something to do with the fact that I'm very close to 30, I realize that I'm me because of everything, not just the big moments, but the little ones too. I realize that time does fly, and that before I know it I'll be a little old lady in a rocker reflecting back to when I thought I was getting old at 30 and wish I could go back. I'm going to yearn for a time when my life seemed simpler. We often waste our youth, because we always think there will be more time to figure things out, and then we find out different.