Tonight in my Anatomy lab I was talking with my lab group about other classes, and I mentioned that I had actually already graduated from another school and blah blah. The girl sitting next to me turned to me and said, “Wait, I’m sorry, how old are you?” So I told her that I turn 25 tomorrow and she said, “Whoa, holy shit, 25! Sorry, no offense, but you look 17.” Story of my life.
So yes, tomorrow I turn 25, and I’m happy to report that this is actually the least depressed I’ve ever been during a birthday, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have absolutely no expectations and don’t have a boyfriend to fuck it up for me, because let’s face it, I can remember being upset over a boy on my birthday for roughly the last ten years of my life. I know that I’m happy right now because I know that everyone I love feels I am equally as important to them as they are to me. It is a new and great feeling. My relative contentedness is kind of unusual if you consider the fact that I’m going to be 25, still live at home, am single, celibate, and unemployed. Oh and I also want to lose about 20lbs. However, I have a confession: I actually really like my life right now. I think I made a superb decision to change around my whole life, even if it means spending the next 2 years not really having income. And while my parents drive me crazy sometimes and sometimes scare me with their middle aged sexcapades (when I came home before I had a moment of panic before opening the front door, thinking I’d walk in on something scary) I really like spending time with them.
For the first twenty-two years of my life, my parents were pretty much never around. I had basically become a parasite onto my friends’ families for as long as I can remember. And even when my parents were around, they never paid attention to me or we would just fight. But now that we have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on therapy, we’re all actually pretty happy and I have gotten over the fact that they may not have been the greatest parents ever when I was younger, but they are great parents now. I spend at least an hour with my them every day. I kind of think of them more as peers than parents, because they’re really ridiculous and I feel like most of the time I’m looking after them. Also, I know they really like having me around, and I know they really dread having me move out. I make them laugh. It’s nice to be appreciated, and I feel like although a lot of my peers seem to be leaps and bounds ahead of my developmentally in life (buying houses, being married, having babies), I don’t really care because I’m filling a quota of family time that I never actually had as a kid, and I know it’s important so that some day I can function as a good parent. Let’s be real, my eggs don’t start being crappy eggs for another ten whole years, ok? No need to rush this whole ball and chain/mortgage/children thing. (And for the record, I have more life experience in my pinky toe than most 25 year olds have, that’s why I have such huge balls.)
Anyway, this was kind of cheesy and sappy, but you only turn 25 once, right? A quarter century requires a certain amount of reflection I think.
