Farewell 24...

I have thought about my 25th birthday for quite some time. The truth is, I love birthdays, I live for birthdays! Ok, perhaps that is an exaggeration, but I do love them. Usually, I dream about what I want to do months in advance, and like to extend the celebration as long as everyone will allow me. Birthdays are fun, even if they are not mine. At work I am the self-proclaimed Birthday Committee dedicated to baking the birthday cake of everyone in my department and making their day a good one, despite the fact that they would probably rather spend their birthday elsewhere.

This birthday, however, arrived with some anxiety and less excitement than others. I will be 25. 25. 20 plus 5. I don't feel ready to be this old. What the hell have I done in the last 5 years? I graduated college, I've traveled, I've joined the 9-5ers in the city. But why does it feel like it's not enough?! Why do I still feel like I am not where I am supposed to be? Why do I feel like I am still pretending to be an adult?

In college, I had to take a speech course. One of the speeches we had to do was a phenomenon. At the time I was flipping out because I thought I had to figure out my life and pick a major. (I know. Silly. I was 19 and actually thought picking my major would sort out the rest of my life. Ha.) Well, the phenomenon I chose was the "Quarter-Life Crisis". This is much like a mid-life crisis, except normally occurs to 20-somethings. Writing about the fact that we didn't have to figure it all out, that everyone was muddling through the same stuff, was therapeutic. I changed my major, graduated college and life went on.

I thought I had put my quarter-life crisis behind me. I am just beginning to realize: it never actually left...For some "finding yourself" is actually more like a game of hide and seek. You look all over, try new things, and you find out who you are, and as soon as you find out, it's game over and you start playing again. I found myself at 20 I knew who I was, I loved who I was, I was confident, knew what I wanted from life and was sure I was going to get it. 3 years and one relationship later, I am a single, soon-to-be 25 Chicago gal playing a ridiculously long and exhausting game of hide and seek.

This leads me to the premise of this blog. I want to document my journey through my 25th year. I want this to be my "call to arms", a way to jilt me out of my complacency. I want to kick 25's ass. I want this to be a year of change, a year of hope, positivity, a year to learn a little bit about myself and what I want. I could just do this in a regular journal, like I always have, but I have looked at past entries, and for the most part it is just the same old bullshit. It doesn't help me progress. I am hoping this will hold me accountable.

R.I.P 24. Tomorrow is day one of this epic...