[Formendacil]

Helped, perhaps, by Facebook memories in these latter years, the occasion of the great feast of the Epiphany never passes without me remembering my own, smaller, "epiphany," eighteen years ago today.

Not only has my Downs account come of age, since I was seventeen on the cusp of eighteen when I joined, this means I have now spent MORE of my life as a member of this forum--nay, this community--than I spent before joining it. I have rehearsed before that I probably would not live where I do, have married as I have, have the children I do, if it were not for the decision to sign up and participate here.

Though it probably isn't the sort of thing one articulates in most settings, it'd probably be ACCURATE to say that "Barrow-downer" is one of my most fundamental identities, even my truest citizenship, and perhaps it is permissible for me to say as much in this venue on this date.