Quarter life rumination

Even as a self-proclaimed “child by choice,” 25 sounds old sometimes.
I know. I know it’s not. It’s relative.
But there is a small level of expectation that didn’t exist before.
I need to know I’m progressing even if age
doesn’t correlate to experience, knowledge, wisdom, or maturity.
That does NOT mean I want to start taking myself super seriously
or pretend I’m all grown-up even if 18 suddenly seems young. 
I don’t want to stop living fervently or even foolishly.
I want to get manic about spring, dance with reckless abandon, 
stay up all night talking to strangers without purpose,
impulsively drive to the middle of nowhere, dream of going around the world and
passionately compile stacks of books I’ll never get around to reading.
But I’m wary because I don’t have much time to waste.
Six years after the fact, I now understand why
my former boss said “you need more urgency.”
Never mind that she was talking about coffee. 30 will be here tomorrow.  
Until now, I felt like there would be 
“Time for you and time for me/
and time yet for a hundred indecisions/
and for a hundred visions and revisions.”  (T.S. Eliot) 

But now time has started accelerating. I barrel forward. Woosh. 

As a child, my mid-twenties seemed very distant. With curiosity and naivety, I used to dream of being 25. I was always very confident in my visions. At 25 my older sister was married, working and a mother of three. Imagining a similar fate was not a stretch. I pictured myself in a black & white portrait. I imagined children around, organized belongings, day-to-day stability and a certain ease in my mannerisms. Sprinkled wisdom twinkled throughout. WOW I couldn’t have been more inaccurate and our lives couldn’t contrast more.

Now aside from aging, I’m certain that I haven’t a clue of what lies ahead, I am very confident of the uncertainty. Life is red, yellow, orange, blue, indigo, green and violet paint swirled together. It’s infinitely more complicated, messy and chaotic than I could have ever conjured up in my little black & white daydreams. I yearn for some routine to manage easier.

These days, I wake up each morning. I open my eyes and wonder how I survived my teens and arrived at this prime age. I wonder how I got to be where I am. Where did chance lead? And where exactly did the ripples from the butterfly effect begin?

I grazed a colossal ice-berg last year.

Traveling left me dreaming of possibilities, drooling over opportunities I didn’t know existed. I saw the potential for life and conversely understood the potential for its waste. There are so many places I want to go, people I want to meet on the road, and an infinite amount I have yet to learn. There is so much I don’t want to miss, and so the sound of the second hand ticking seems amplified! My fear of getting stuck in a rut is more terrifying than ever.

Transitions…. Everyone goes through them but that doesn’t make them easier. My resolve hasn’t hardened with age; I only grow more sensitive. Bracing myself, I get ready to leap yet again. Prepared to swim, wade, dance and float. I Inhale deeply to the mantra trust, and then I gingerly dive.

With awareness, gentleness, and kindness I have to trust everything will work.

stuck on this loveliness.