Twenty-Five

            Recently someone asked me how I was.  I responded with, “Oh, you know, just the constant inner struggle of a girl in her twenty-fifth year.”  She kind of backed away, eyes wide and then proceeded to tell me about her twenty-fifth year.  She had quit the Peace Corps, couldn’t find a job and ended up pregnant and married by the end of it (though she promises me she loves her kids and I believe her).  Others have told me that life just found a way of messing itself up over and over again in their twenty-fifth year.  A close friend of mine experienced not one, but many heartbreaks.  Others found themselves racking up debt, or battling the constant temptation to acquire the lives “normal” to a conventional twenty-five year old. One woman did tell me that twenty-five was one of the best years of her life.  She left me with a little bit of hope and a hug but it I have these horrible dark circles under my eyes that have appeared in the last week and I am beginning to find gray hair.

 I’ve promised the world that I would record my twenty-something dilemmas so that when the time is right I can pass on what I learned from them.  Recently I feel like life has given me a lot of material with which to work. Sometimes life hands us situations from which we fear we will never recover.  We can run or face them.  Usually I face them.  Usually I cry a lot.  I face things and cry and then I check out and sleep for a week. This is what I do. This is how I often confront life.  I call it “cut and run.”  I wonder if this actually counts as surviving?  I think I’m fighting my way through the rougher parts of life, think I’m being strong but when all is done I’m left weak.  I’m twenty-five.  I’ve experienced a lot of life in a lot of ways others haven’t.  However, I still don’t seem to grasp these things about life yet.  Am I supposed to be so worn out at the end of the day?  Am I supposed to avoid everything and everyone because I’m just too tired?  When do I start processing information as it happens and face the situation head on?

I suppose this is where that hope comes in.  Hope is not something that comes easy to me. I was born a chronic pessimist.  Trust me, I’ve tried to stop this cycle.  It’s hard but I’ve had times where my outlook has been very rosy.  But as life goes on and I continue to stand up to my giants, I find that sometimes I just continue to be stuck in this spot where staying in bed seems like it very well could be the best option.  I hate this about myself.  I often feel like my response time to average, every day stresses is so delayed that I turn everything into some kind of drama without even trying.  So I have a counselor and she informs me that I seem to have this complex where I look at the whole world and I see all these things that are wrong and I somehow get it in my head that if I don’t fix it then nobody will, only I have no idea how to fix anything.  She also tells me that I get so focused on the end results that I forget that I live in the present and until I see what life is right now then I won’t be able to grow and move on.  I have no idea what she is talking about.

I have found myself some simple things that help me feel a little more in control of my life and my emotions.  I take my liquid Vitamin D because I live in the Pacific Northwest and while I love the clouds and the rain and cooler temperatures I also get very sad sometimes when my friend the sun does not pay my a visit.   I consume plenty of black tea and chocolate simply because these things make me really happy and I believe that I deserve to treat myself.   I’m learning to take moments of silence, practice some basic yoga and am reading books that have been calling my name for too long.  Most importantly I have been writing.  I’ve written pages and pages and this helps me see that life is lived out with more grace than I often seem to think it is.

I feel like I’m at a crossroads in my life.   Some people consider me a full-fledged adult.  Some tell me I’m still young.  Me? I’m still undecided. For the last ten years I have been told, “don’t let anyone look down on your because you are young…instead set the example.”  I’m somewhere between distinct seasons of my life and I have this choice. My choice is to hide in bed or to defy the constant pull of escapism and be someone who is moving toward bigger things trying to dance in harmony with life.  I’ve stopped feeling alone in these things.  I’m sure there are more of you out there who have found yourselves at a certain age where certain things seem to be the norm and those things feel very opposite of the places you find yourselves in.  Some search for the reset button on life only to find that it doesn’t exist. 

My hope for all us is that we can wake up in the morning, get out of bed and remind ourselves that this is life and we are meant to live it and for now it’s uncomfortable and chaotic.  But, if we endure it now we’ll be the wise ones in twenty years (mind you, I’m convinced it will still be uncomfortable and chaotic, it’s just that we’ll be wiser).  Can I challenge us to plan that far ahead?