an ode to twenty three

Before every birthday, I tend to stress over whether or not I’ve lived the past year to its full potential. I look back through old photos since I have a habit of taking too many in fear of missing anything. I compare how life was on my last birthday to how it is now. I worry, essentially, because I’ll never be as young as I am now and I don’t want to let time pass without doing all that I can. So I’ll try to compensate for it by making sure the last few days before my birthday are the absolute best.

Usually, it doesn’t work that way. Since my birthday falls during the end of the school term, I’m scrambling to study for tests and keep up with the curriculum. This past week I did the same, however, I had the added element of this disastrous presidential election clouding over everything. Somehow, despite feeling like the world was officially over, life kept going on.

Twenty three was difficult, as was twenty two. I had, for some reason, assumed things would get better, but it only got more jumbled. I’m not saying that I’ve had a bad year, but it was a lot of growing up, and everyone knows growing up sucks. When I looked through some of my pictures, I found that it had lessened in number quite drastically. I couldn’t explain it, but it seemed significant  that I wasn’t always flipping my phone out to capture a moment. Possibly because I’d taken to watching it with my own eyes for a change.

At this age, we’re all trying to find ourselves through graduating, finding a job, and navigating through different relationships, whether it be romantic or platonic. We drift from one place to another, finding solace in new people, and sometimes old. Mostly because we all feel a little lost. We’re still in that age spectrum where we don’t quite feel like adults yet, but we are. We have existential crises everyday and question everything, trying to figure out what the meaning of it all is. Why am I here? What am I meant to do?

On top of all that, time tends to fly a little faster now. One minute I’m fourteen and about to start high school with no idea of what’s to come, and suddenly I’m twenty four with no idea how I got here. I’ve met new people and I’ve lost them. I’ve made the best memories, but had to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never get those moments back. I’ve had to make difficult choices that were never a part of my life plan simply because life can be unpredictable. And I’ve found that it’s okay to be lost sometimes because that’s when we’re able to experience endless possibilities and opportunities.

There were times this past year where I tried really hard to become who I envision myself to be. I went out of my way and did what I wasn’t always comfortable doing, but I think those moments really helped me grow. At the end of the day, I’m just trying to be somebody. I want to leave behind a mark so that people remember me as someone who did something rather than getting by. I’m already seeing the changes in me that I need, and I’ll just have to take it one day at a time from here.

So here’s to all the days where I’ve felt lost and lonely sitting in my room on Saturday nights -- it wasn’t as pathetic as I thought it was. The days where I felt happy and free because I’ve got the best family and friends who love me -- even if I didn’t realize it sometimes. And the days when I doubted myself but still made it. Here’s to twenty three.

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Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but “Mom’s” probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened everyday and arms that were never for anyone else. But just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breathe in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes.

— The Winter of the Air