httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RRY3OVqtwc

The first round of Britney mania lasted about five years.

With all the good stuff going on in Spears’ life these days-from her residency, Britney: Piece of Me, at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas; the release of her ninth studio album, Glory; becoming the third-ever person after BeyoncĂ© and Whitney Houston to receive the Billboard Music Awards’ Millennium Award; to her general health and happiness and, of course, those boys of hers-t’s so much for the birthday girl to be celebrating today and every day.

She’s been engaged, weatd a few breakups and this summer told James Corden during “Carpool Karaoke” she’s given up on men-but not the idea of more kids.

The comeback narrative that has been applied to 2008’s Circus, to 2011’s Femme Fatale and to 2013’s Britney Jean has persisted, all the way up until this year’s Glory and her performance at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards-her first VMAs performance since 2007, pre-hospitalization, and tfore her big “Return.”

What’s going on now, and has been going on for about seven years now, is just Britney’s career.

So it goes when you’re trying to sustain a music career for going on 18 years.

Rooting for Britney Spears is still a perfectly respectable pastime, but perhaps 2016-punctuated today by her 35th birthday-will be the last chapter of her storied comeback.

Time to catch up with Britney, because she’s about moving forward.

Britney Spears