her twenty-fifth year

Saturday.

It was my twenty-fifth birthday.

And for me, that's kind of a big deal.

I find real pleasure in typing out numbers as opposed to just typing two digits.

I do not tend to think ahead on a regular basis. And when I do think ahead, I usually brush any thought of action aside. My Friday evening: driving down the road, heading from seventy-first and memorial to third and harvard, quite a distance in Tulsa terms, looking at my gas gauge light up, knowing I could very easily run out of stated fuel at any moment. Interesting points that make up the context of the no gas story: I have two dollars in my pocket, I lost my debit card and am awaiting its replacement in the mail, and the banks are closed as it is about nine-thirty in the evening. The moral of the story is that I knew I was low on gas, I knew I could have gone to the bank before my five pm shift at the amazingly wonderful woodland hills mall, to withdraw money for the nearly empty fuel tank. I actually pondered this at some point between jobs. But I wanted to take a nap more and I didn't want to give up any time of that coveted sleep. So I decided to take the chance. And I made it home. Not to say that I recommend this, or think I made the right decision. It was irresponsible. And that to say, I thought ahead and brushed action aside.

About my twenty-fifth birthday, I didn't think about it too much ahead. It just hit me, around the eighth of February that I would be twenty-five the next day, a quarter of a century, antique, if I was a car. And not to make that statement that I am getting so old. I know I am still young, and that the majority of the population is older than I am. But, in the scope of the decade that I am in, not being in my early twenties any more is a huge relief. I didn't enjoy most of those years, as a whole. There are huge pieces of my past that I have truly found freedom from, things and habits and psychological and emotional constraints that I have let go of, waved good-bye to. And that, I think, is why this birthday was, why this year is, significant for me. Because it is the first whole year of my life that I can say this truth is true for me. Not to say that there will not be difficulty ahead. Because of the way life works out, there will inevitably be difficulties. But they are a different kind of difficulties...the kind that exist, but don't have to affect my core, which is where the past difficulties used to reside. And I am making conscious choices to put myself in challenging situations, because I don't have to be afraid of them, and that freedom is what makes my twenty-five so very smashing. Because it is encircled in previous stated freedom, the kind I used to desperately hope for, the kind I believed could be true, the kind I am exceptionally thankful to have. Enveloped in that reality, it feels really, really good to be this twenty-five.

One of the coolest parts of it all is that I don't understand and cannot explain the goodness that surrounds me. I have never been able to explain to myself why I am blessed with so many good people. I am selfish, and forgetful, and complicated, often too much. I forget birthdays, neglect to call. This is not a paragraph of self-deprecation. I am not looking for sympathy. I am just trying to type out the beauty of being blessed with good, real, honest people in my life in light of the fact that I don't understand, can't explain, why. That's all. During this journey I am on, of finding the courage to be honest, battling the tendency to be too hard on myself, making the decision to take risks and not be held back by fear, letting go of the reality that I actually cannot be perfect or everything to everyone, becoming more of the person I am meant to be...to have good, real, honest people to walk through all of that with is...more than words can say, it's living in community, even if we aren't in the same zip code, it's being not alone, and believing that...it's invaluable.

Cheers to what I believe will be a really spectacular year.