26

everything i learned at twenty-five

i actively looked forward to birthdays as a teen because there were things to look forward to. at seventeen, i looked forward to attending birthday parties at night. at eighteen, i looked forward to living in a new start in a new city. at twenty-one, i was excited to show my id after ordering my own cocktail. but at twenty-six, i wasn’t sure what i had to look forward to.

after i turned twenty-three, i sometimes feel like i have seen it all. every year since i turned twenty-three, i have felt like there wasn’t much for me to look forward to with age. you see, even after the year i had, i still forget how much of life is unexpected. how as we get older so much more happens and how they happen when you least expect them to.

right now, i feel like the next few years will be the same. that i will continue to do the same things. but i know the feeling is deceiving and the same moment never comes twice.

there was a certain freedom that came with being twenty-five: having the stamina to go out for a spontaneous karaoke session at midnight only to come into work the very next morning. being able to go to a bookstore and buy myself whatever fancy pen i desired. at twenty-five i felt very alive, untethered and exempt from any real consequences.

i might be able to do the same things at twenty-six, twenty-seven, heck even twenty-eight. but i probably won’t be the same person while doing it. maybe i will get use to the feeling of being able to buy whatever book i want that i will start desiring for more, and a book will no longer elicit the same sentiment. maybe my friends and i will become so busy that four hour karaoke sessions feel like a privilege of our youth.

you see, that was the scariest thing about being twenty-five. that it is so easy to take the present for granted and feel like everything will be this way forever. that we can’t fathom getting older and having our lives actually change. but we don’t know how much of every given moment that we actually have.

but i don’t want to be scared. for uncertainty will be the constantly recurring theme for the rest of our lives. to fear uncertainty is to fear living, and that is no way to live at all. so bear with me as i attempt to conjure the courage to have faith: that just as we don’t know how life could any given time take a turn for the worse, life will also heed no warning for when it becomes real good.

my one wish for twenty-six is that i remain aware: of how delicate our lives are and of how fleeting our twenties are. that i somehow manage to remember it all. that i will fill up my camera roll with faces of my friends. that i will make playlist of songs i can’t stop listening to at that given time. because that is all i can do to preserve a moment, right?