The Girl Who Turned 27 and Was Excited By It

That’s right folks. That girl is me.

Oh I don’t know about you but birthdays never really excited me much. Other people’s birthdays sure, but my own? No thanks.

The worst year was 20. Not for any particular reason. Nothing bad happend that year! It was simply that 20 is sucky number to be. You’re not a teenager anymore and you’re not legally an adult [In the US of course. European kids are lucky and don’t have to wait until the weird age of 21 to be considered an “adult”. But what is an “adult” really?? Because I’m 27 and I still have my nephews/niece convinced that I’m just a Big kid. But I suppose that’s a much bigger topic to cover later hmm?] Anyway, 20. Weird age. Didn’t care for it and honestly I couldn’t wait to turn 21 just so I could stop being an awkward age.

Anyway, 20. Weird age.

But birthday’s have never really been my thing. I’m not big on parties and I don’t have tons of friends. I stopped having “parties” around the age of 13-ish? Truly, it was the year that the first Twilight movie came out (if that doesn’t date me lol!) and I moved away from big parties to smaller gatherings of closer knit friends. For three years I went to go see the Twilight movies at their midnight release because they all happend to come out on my birthday or the day before. Then in high school I moved away from Twilight movies to having dinners with my friend group. That was sort of the thing to do in the 2010s anyway. Then came college which involved much smaller groups of closer knit friends, alcohol, and some karaoke was thrown into the mix too.

My 18th birthday – High School. My dear friend took me to see All Time Low. Hi Friend!
20 – the awkward year. I mean, just look at that hair lol! I believe we were either at the Cheesecake Factory or The Melting Pot. Very mid 2000s
Here I am at 22 being a happy mess. The night was spent at home with my roommate and a friend.
24 – I have ZERO photos from this year. Only this one picture I took on my birthday while I was at work an my break. How sad is that?

Once college ended though birthdays became much less fun. I believe part of that is the mass migration of all your college friends. Everyone goes in eight different directions and suddenly you don’t live two doors down from your best friend anymore. I’m quite lucky in that sense though. I do happen to live in the same town as my best friend of 19 years and 18 of 19 years have been spent with us not always living so close to each other but staying close regardless. Anyway, Post-College Birthdays: they just didn’t hit the same. There’s this mounting pressure once you graduate to “grow up”. You’re excepted to walk across that stage, grab you diploma and suddenly have your whole life figured out.

You mean to tell me your turning 24/25/26 and you’re still not married yet?? No kids?!! You don’t own a house and have a flourishing career you can’t wait to spend the next 5 decades working at?!?!?!!

Yeah. That’s why post-college birthdays sucked. To me at least, but I can imagine for a lot of other people as well. See here’s the thing, I’m 27 and I for sure don’t have my life figured out. I’m not married, no kids, no traditional job. I literally live at home with my parents people! So yeah, I stopped being a fan of birthdays because I started to see it as a day in which I was reminded of everything I had yet to accomplish. That accompanied by all the people around me commenting “Oh you’re getting so old now!” and the society shoving it down our throats all our lives; I really started to hate birthdays.

Oh 25 year old me. She had no idea what was to come. Good Luck chiquita!

Then came 25. See I said 20 was the worst because it was so horrendously awkward but 25? That was the actual worst year. Worst and best I suppose because a lot of good came from a lot of bad. But that’s hindsight vision and I’m getting ahead of myself. 25 was the freaking worst! The absolute thought of being a QUARTER CENTRUY OLD is so daunting and frightening. I mean, it’s no wonder it was the worst year, there’s so much pressure to have accomplished so much because you know, you’re a QUARTER OF CENTURY OLD!! You are, in the thrifting world, considered an antique. In the 15th century you’d probably be a grandparent by now or dead. I don’t really know, I just know their life expectancy was hella low. Even up until the century prior if you weren’t married my 25 you were officially SOL sis. No husband for you because you’re a spinster now and if you’re a spinster then there must be something wrong with you. And if you’re not married then who’s going to take care of you? Because this is a man’s world you know and if you don’t have a man to take care of you then you’re basically dead. The End.

Oh you’re so old now!
Said to anyone over the age of 25

You see, it’s that stupid ideology that’s followed us all throughout our human history and made it’s swarmy way in the 21 century where it does not belong. Now boys, I’m certain there are pressures placed upon you to also be successful by the time you hit a quarter of a century but let’s be honest with ourselves and just all agree that no matter what century it is women have always had more pressures placed upon them. Especially when it comes to the topics of marriage and family. All this said, and I could write a dissertation on the subject, I turned 25 and I had none of those things. What I did have was an absolutely heinous job in which I was moving nowhere with and then BAM!

The Pandemic That Shall Not Be Named.

Oh yes. While I was spiraling down a rabbit hole of feeling overwhelmed by my “lack of success” I now had to also live through a world wide panorama and deal with all the baggage that came along with that! I’m sure you can see where this story is headed but let me just jump you right there. November 3, 2020 – also known as My Panicaiversary (the day in which I had the worst panic attack of my entire life) Honestly, that’s a lot to unpack and I’ll save it for a future blog post because I’ve had anxiety and panic for the majority of my life. All you need to know for this story is that 2020 and the year of 25 brought me the absolute worst year of anxiety and panic I have ever experienced in my life. It was so bad that stopped driving completely. I thought I would have to quit my job because of how anxiously I lived every single day.

Suffice it say, I was not excited to turn 26. Not one bit if I’m being honest because I didn’t know what to expect from the coming year. Was it going to be another depressing year of working at Hollister as an Assistant manager and never being considered for a promotion (because of reasons I’ve written about in a separate blog post.)? Was I never going to drive again? I forgot to mention that in 2020 I was accepted to my dream school but had to decline because of the pandemic and financial reasons. 2020 was also spent tirelessly searching for a job in a vast sea of “Entry Level Position – Requires 2-3 years experience”. (Please imagine the largest eye roll you possibly can being inserted right here.) Basically, 25 had sucked so gargantuanly that I was terrified of 26 because if that happened again I just wasn’t sure how I would handle it.

Here I am at 26, trying my absolute best to not be an anxious mess.

And then I turned 26. And things were going, slowly, but they were moving forward. I was now in therapy which I highly recommend to anyone who happens to be a human. I was still an anxious mess. I lived everyday like the sky was going to fall. My resting heart rate was an average of 82bpm but I made it to 26 and beyond. I was, quite literally, taking it one day at a time. I made it through the holiday season at a job that I hated and the New year came and I was feeling okay. Okay is such a middle-of-the-road word and it does so perfectly describe how I was feeling about it all because I was still a mess but it could have been worse!

February 2, 2020 – One of the best days of my life – The day I lost my job

Yes you read that correctly my friends. Losing my garbage job was one of the greatest blessings ever bestowed upon in me in all my life. (You can read all about it here.) I felt F R E E. Suddenly the thing that had been giving the bulk of my anxiety was no longer a factor in my life and I was put into a position where I could take a chance on me! Something I hadn’t done in years! I launched my Etsy shop. I joined a master class on fashion start ups. I started pouring into myself and here we are. [I would like to stress that my anxiety didn’t just magically disappear after I left my previous job, which had been a huge source of anxiety. It didn’t go away in a week, or a month, or even six months. It’s been almost a year since I left that job and I do still experience anxiety but it’s different now; it doesn’t control my life in the way it once did. Living with anxiety and learning to live with anxiety is a journey, not a race. That is something I have learned over this past year. But if the idea that you can’t make anxiety just go away scares you, and trust – it scared me too, just know that it does get better with time. Patience.]

Hello 27! P.S. I made my whole outfit here.

27. For what may be the first time in my adult life, I was excited to turn one year older. Because I had walked through fire and came out the other end. Because I am doing the thing I love most in the world, creating garments. Because I had a revelation that 27 years old IS NOT OLD! No matter what anyone says you can’t change my mind. 27 IS NOT OLD. 28 IS NOT OLD. 35 is STILL NOT OLD. You know why? Because this isn’t the 15th century. It isn’t even the 20th century. We no longer need to have it all figured out by the age of whatever because we can doing anything at any age. When I was in my senior year of college (feeling slightly bad because technically it was my 5th year of college and everyone else I knew had graduated already) I was in a poetry class with this amazing writer and woman who was further along in her adult life. She had already had a career and a college degree but she decided one day that she wanted to go back to school and get her degree in poetry. Age didn’t matter. She did it because she wanted too and I’ve never stopped being inspired by her. I didn’t fully understand the phrase “age is just a number” until this year but honey, age is just a number. And you don’t have to have it all figured out. I believe that no one ever truly has it all figured out. And all those adults you think are adulting so well, chances are they’re just as confused as the rest of us.

If you’ve made it this far, congrats! That was quite a long winded way of saying:

YOU’RE NOT OLD. YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE IT ALL FIGURED OUT. YOU’RE GOING TO BE OKAY.

Ah, if you were wondering what I did for my 27th birthday well, I went out to birthday lunch with my parents and we got sushi/sashimi! I happen to be born one day after my mom so we celebrated together. Later that night my sister and her family came over as well as my best friend and her boyfriend and we celebrated with a cheesecake that my mom made. (I don’t like birthday cake. Don’t come for me.) Then, on the day of my actual birthday I journaled, played Animal Crossings, watched Grease and just R E L A X E D. It was truly amazing.