Day One Thousand Two

This year, I've found myself way more reflective on/after my birthday than usual. Maybe it's the fact that my age now visibly shows that I'm closer to 30 than 20, or maybe it's just caused me to acknowledge that I've finally reached a point in life where I actually feel somewhat like a functioning adult (not always, but definitely more often). It's that moment where you feel like you're doing pretty well being independent and taking care of yourself, but at the same time regularly struggling with feeling like you're floundering.

I made a lot of progress in my year of being 25. I made it a full year living on my own (this is a big deal, just trust me), started over in my search for a church that I felt connected with and am slowly working on establishing myself somewhere new, and got better at not letting the threat of going somewhere alone keep me from doing something I want to do. Like baseball games and concerts and comedy shows.

This bird also decided he didn't need anyone else to enjoy
some baseball.

 I worked on being true to myself and my interests, which included searching for a book club and eventually joining one. While this provided much fodder for others to poke fun at me, I haven't regretted it at all. Probably one of the biggest shifts this year has been finally feeling comfortable in grad school - feeling like I'm not the dumbest person in the room, like I made the right decision in deciding to go to graduate school and deciding to stay in graduate school even when things really, really sucked (and sometimes continue to suck). I now find that I can read and understand things like this and how it integrates with my own research.

Feast your eyes. Ready to go to grad school, yet?

I'm excited and a little terrified to see what being 26 brings. I have some ideas of what I would like it to bring - a greater sense of independence and self confidence, greater consistency with being active/going to the gym, and being more accepting of the fact that I'm not meant to have everything figured out just yet.

I've only been 26 for three days now, but it's gone pretty well so far. I have family that sends me ridiculous cross-dressing ballerina birthday cards (it's a long story) and who make sure I have a box of birthday gifts that arrive to me exactly on my birthday for me to open, and I have friends that know me well enough to get me things like a small alpaca figurine, because there is never a time when those silly looking creatures don't make me smile. I think that makes me pretty lucky.