This is 25: a weird overview of my life and thoughts on being a year older.

Yesterday, I turned 25, a quarter of a century… I’ve likely lived more than a quarter of my life, probably more like one third. It’s flown by I think. Overall I don’t remember most of 0-10, I mean there are a few shining moments in there, and some not so shiny ones… but mostly, there’s nothing.

The earliest memory I can think of I believe I was 4 and a few months. I have vague snapshots of playing in the water with my cousins. Then a few months later what I think was my brother’s 3rd birthday party. After that things start to become more concrete. Riding my first horse, falling on a dock. Playing with my dollhouse. The time someone escaped a prison 30 miles from where we lived… My dad dropping me off at Kindergarten, when the cops came to our house, unsuccessful in school nap time, and someone having an accident in the kindergarten bathrooms.

6 years old is when things started to get really interesting I remember my first ride on the school bus and the madness that followed, 9/11 and being afraid of airplanes in the night sky over my house. This was also the year I lost my first tooth, went to Hawaii, and almost learned to whistle. I made my first best friend this year, had my first crush, and felt left out for the first time. 7 was decent, I remember some bullying, but not much. I loved my teacher, had my second crush, and remember making more friends. 8 was tough… bullying, my parents fighting, and just generally didn’t have lots of happy atmospheres in my life.

9 my parents got divorced and for 4 years after that things were always at the very least complicated. 10 sucked, I recognized that I was depressed for the first time. 11-13 weren’t so bad, complicated, but I found a good friend group and started to figure out who I was. 14 and 15 were harder… friend groups changed, family life was a shit show, and I wouldn’t relive those years if you paid me. 16 and 17 weren’t half bad. I planned for my future, I had friends, I was learning and involved, home life smoothed out, I didn’t sleep much, but was just generally a little manic and it worked.

18 was a mixed bag. At 19 I attempted suicide. Year 20 I learned A LOT. I had a weird but good support system. I started to find my own way and dig myself back out of the hole I’d found myself in. At 21, I was really on my game. I was planning a future again and trying to find the confidence I needed to make it happen. I met Nick, moved in with him, and then turned 22. Which was a good year, plans changed, I learned to be more flexible and I learned a lot about love.

23 was weird and hard, we lived in a tent, we moved to Portland, we started a whole new life, and then my dad died just days before my 24th birthday. 24… grief, COVID, quarantine. Lots of loss in the last year. And now here I sit, at the beginning of yet another year, still trying to swallow the shit from the last one. I’m reminded of the few certainties we have in this life; death, my grandpa always said ‘taxes’, and I think perhaps the passage of time. While I would have to say time has felt significantly less consistent in the speed at which I feel it travels.. it does indeed travel.

I look back and I think all my memories combined from the first 10 years of my life MAYBE accumulate to be 48 hours worth of footage streaming through my minds eye. And the last 15 years… they take up more rolls of film than I thought possible. Every day I remember something I haven’t thought of in forever. The last 15 years feel like 15 lifetimes.

And I’m starting a new one, a new chapter in the book… a new reel of film, a new lifetime of memories. I hope this is a good one. I feel oddly at a loss for words. I don’t have any big plans or goals. I think really I’m just hoping to keep moving forward, to stay as positive as I can, and to find moments of joy each day.

Yesterday, my actual birthday, was like many other days in Quarantine. I spent half my morning putzing and snuggling with my cat. I talked to a few friends and family members, spent a few hours reading and writing, went for a walk, and enjoyed an evening dinner with Nick. I found joy in sunshine, in the flowers I was sent, and in dinner with Nick. It felt like a well balanced day. I think I hope that this year I have more days like this.