Hi everyone and happy bank holiday Monday to you! I hope you're out and about doing something fantastic with what, I guess is technically the last weekend of Summer (but here's hoping we have a few sunny September weekends in compensation for just how many times my feet got soaked in the rain while wearing sandals this season!).
Today is my birthday. Today I turn 25 years old. Today I don't have to wporry about changing the name of my blog just yet.
I thought when I hit 25, I might have a bit of an identity crisis. What have I achieved? What should I have achieved? What shall I do next? I thought that when I hit 25, I would be asking the same question I have asked myself every other birthday in my twenties: 'How have I reached <insert year>?' But actually 25 doesn't feel like putting on an oversized suit. I don't feel like I'm playing dress up and pretending to be an adult. 25 feels like a pair of jeans that have been worn in so that they don't cut you off at the waist band, but not so worn in they are baggy around the knees or saggy at the bum. I can tell you where I've worn these jeans and how we got to where I stand now. I feel like 25 fits just right.
For most of my life I've told people my age only to hear that 'I thought you were older than that' but I don't hear that so much anymore. Maybe I've finally grown into the bags under my eyes, or maybe (and I'd prefer to think this) I've stopped trying to act grown up and started to act my age. I'm still as mature as I've always been but I'm more assured in the fact that sometimes, I'm unsure.
I don't feel the need to come up with an answer on the spot for where my life is going anymore. I don't feel like the phrase 'quarter life crisis' describes, explains or defines me. I feel like 'I'm human' suits me much better.
Over the past couple of years I've mulled over, cried over, and over blogged about how confusing life is in your twenties, how it feels like you have been conned. That you thought you would know the answer by now, and that it seems highly unfair that you don't. And on some days this is still true, but as I'm growing I've come to realise, that on some days, that will always be true, regardless of what decade you fall into.
Sometimes the best thing to do when you don't have the answer is just admit to that. Let it slow you down for a while. Take the time to breathe and to work it out, and accept that any answer that comes along might not be the solution that lasts you forever.
Your answers will change, your questions will change. For a while living in Manchester was right for me, and then it wasn't. Going home was the answer and then it became the problem. For now the job I have and the place I live are the right answer, but my question could change at any point. Should I move to a bigger city? Am I in the right job? What should my next step be?
I've stopped trying to chase answers all the time, and instead concentrated more on working out what the question is, because to be unsure, is to admit to being human.
So for now 25 fits just right, but a good pair of jeans can't last forever and even if an answer appears to be one size fits all it doesn't necessarily mean it will suit you. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go start drafting new blog names for when I hit 30, because no doubt it will take me the next five years to come up with one I actually like.*
Live life, chase questions not answers & a happy birthday to me x
*All suggestions welcome
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