Thoughts On 25

Now that the celebration is over it’s time to do what I do best, over-analyze. Because whether I like it or not, 25 is a milestone.

25 might be a little too young for the saying “over the hill” but in a sense we are crossing into a different stage in life. With your mid-twenties comes the realization that you are indeed growing up. For our parents 25 meant you were already an adult, many already married by 25. For our grandparents, many were on child number two or three or… But for the millennials (I hate that term by the way), a lot of us anyways, it means we are just starting to really figure it out. By 25 we have finished school or at least I hope you have. We have sufficiently damaged our livers while “finishing school”. We have dabbled in more than one field of work. We have gone on some “going to find myself” trip abroad. We have dated someone who was totally wrong for us. We have supported ourselves for an extended period of time. And we have been totally knocked down, at least once. And after all this we have thought at least once, I, my unmarried self am the only person responsible for my happiness.

So by 25 when you stop to reflect on the life you’ve led thus far and the person you are turning out to be, you think to yourself, damn I’ve done a lot in a short period of time. Because the years our parents and grandparents spent getting married, buying houses, making babies and growing up in the traditional sense, we have been growing up in “non-traditional” ways. Times have changed. People now characterize much of our twenties as “pre-adulthood”, which to me means going out in the world and growing up in other ways. Traveling, dating, meeting unexpected people, finding that dream job, pushing boundaries, getting hurt, hating yourself, loving yourself, eating $55 brunches in the best city in the world and just living the shit out of life, every single moment of it. Or at least this is how it’s been for me.

So am I where I thought I would be at 25? In the traditional sense, no I’m not. At 21 I thought I’d be married. At 22 I thought I’d still be in law school. At 23 I thought I’d be scoring it big in an IPO. At 24 I had no idea where I thought I’d be. So at 25, in my new definition of this phase, I’m not only where I think I should be but also where I want to be.

I’ve said this before, but I have always prided myself on knowing exactly who I am. Reflecting on how unexpectedly my life has turned out thus far I suppose I should rephrase that. I know exactly who I am in the moment. Which I now think is probably better. I know what I want on any given day and while that might change in a few months or a few years, I am happy every single day. This is coming from a mildly Type-A planner, but I often ask myself why I plan and set expectations for anything far beyond this moment. I know I’ll continue to plan and I know I’ll continue to bend and mold to whatever comes my way, yet I can’t help but think sometimes how silly it is to get caught up in “the future”. In a life that can so easily be taken from us, isn’t it better to be happy in the moment than to plan happiness for a future that isn’t guaranteed?

Here’s to the next 25. May the changing of plans continue to bring such insane happiness.