Changes
Hi from 25 – 52
I turn 26 on Sunday. Thus, we’ve arrived at post #52 of 52. The last go.
When I wrote post 1 of this ~documented journey through 25~ on March 19, 2019 — four days after my birthday and thinking twice about a tipsy, dirty banana and Cancun sun-induced decision to try this — I said I wanted to at least give it a shot as a vehicle for intentional reflection and pause. To slow down, better understand how my mind ticks, play with creative ways to turn thoughts big and small into words and sentences and paragraphs.
I also said I wanted to eliminate any thematic guardrails and instead keep this open to the endless, random stream of things I may find interesting. AKA I was scatter brained AF and wanted permission to be scatter brained AF.
So I wrote 52 times in 52 weeks in a larger replication of what I was required to do senior year when I had to write at least once per week for a class. Now, comparing the random mess of things I’ve written about this year to the random mess of things I was writing about in 2015/2016, I have an amusing archive of what I used to find interesting versus what I find interesting now, and a small window into ways I have changed or not changed as a person. A paper trail of getting older.
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Humans have so many anxieties around getting older. I have so many anxieties around getting older. It seems that many of these anxieties aren’t rooted in the age, though, but are more rooted in the chasm between point A and point B. For me currently, the chasm between 25 and 26. Anxieties sprouting from questions like: Where did the year go? What did I do within the year, or maybe more importantly, what did I fail to do within the year before my age ticked up another digit? The number itself may not matter nearly as much, it’s what did or didn’t happen between the numbers that taunts us.
So I take a pause from the current absolute shit show of the world to think about what happened this year. What occurred in the chasm? There was no “defining moment” or major life event, and that’s okay. I hope when I think about 25, I think about a year of magical thinking, to rip off Joan Didion. A year of revitalized stream of consciousness, willingness to play with complexity, appetite to fool around with thought and perspective and habit building for nothing more than shits and gigs. A year of grappling with change, and the stressors and excitements that orbit change. A year of realizing that change used to seem like a scarier, unpredictable beast, and how I’m now more scared by the thought of change evading me, of evolutions and evolvements not marking the passing of years.
And now another year has passed. And I feel full thinking about the chasm between 25 and 26 being most heavily marked by those things.
The first week of January, as I jotted down 2020 goals on a note pad to tack in my closet, one goal sort of crept up on me and made it to the sheet unexpectedly—to approach 26 with peace of mind and gratitude, ditching the ageism anxieties. Something I will probably rewrite at the start of 2021, 2022, 2023, and so on.
I’m excited to be a year older. I’m not feeling much chasm angst. Changes and lots of words happened in the gap between 25 and 26, and I think I spent an increased amount of time thinking about complicated things and inconsequential things. I’m glad I funneled more time in that direction. I’m glad I tried to better nurture change instead of fighting it. And I hope those things are what I’m reminded of when I think back on 25 and if I ever re-read these. Thinking and growing, what more could ya ask for?
It’s been fun.
Bye from 25. ✌️
I’ll be writing once per week throughout 25 about anything/everything. Let’s get weird. Follow here.
