i always ask this question when greeting happy birthday to friends who turn 25. it just seems so final.
after you turn 25, you can no longer say you are still in your early 20s - you have to check the box labeled mid-late 20s when signing survey forms.
you are expected to have gotten out of the horrible job zone and are supposed to be buying important life purchases - houses, cars, life insurance plans, 2nd degrees and MBAs and the like.
you are supposed to at least be on the start of "the marriage track", and dating a person whom you can actually bring home to mom.
you are generally just supposed to have gotten things "out of your system", be better equipped to make important decisions, and know what to do with the rest of your life.
---- did i miss a tutorial somewhere? as an incredibly (yes, i admit it) repressed person, things "still are very much alive and thriving inside my system". i am a girl full of wild unbridled dreams and wants, curiosities thwarted and undone by going through 12 years of stringent catholic school upbringing. having consciensciously followed all of the seemingly senseless rules given to us by the ssps nuns, religious figures and pastoral leaders, i find myself enraged at getting to 25 and feeling that i have never lived at all. i feel somewhat caged, somewhat lost, wanting to rebel and break out, yet fearful at being chastised for wanting to do it so late in the game.
i am a 15 year old girl trapped in the body of a 25 year old person. i want the same stupid things - sloppy first kisses, awkward first dates, hidden high school romances and all the corny trappings of high school puppy love.
following nearly everything that was laid out for me to follow, i always felt like it was a good sign that i had never really made big mistakes, or suffered any earth-shattering heartbreaks. the other day though, whilst shopping at a warehouse sale, i saw this sign that resonated something inside that i knew to be true. to loosely paraphrase it, i think it said "those who never make mistakes are in danger of never trying anything new." and that's what i thought about my life entirely.
on that same day, during my brother's graduation ceremony, the guest speaker Dr. Tony Dans, an enlightened human being, and one i wish to hug in my lifetime (because of his brilliant speech), said that one should be able to distinguish the need to rebel from the need to do mischief, because between the two there is a world of difference. to do mischief lacks the nobility of rebellion - of going against the norm to stand for what you believe in. that what may be viewed by most conformist elders to be "rebellion" in the negative sense of the word, may actually be exercises in creativity that must be embraced and respected. for what are we to do in the world if not to rebel against sameness? it is those who question what is the norm that move on to discover the great things that the future generations will hold valuable.
i guess what i'm trying to say is that i do not feel guilty for whatever rebellious behavior i may be exhibiting in the eyes of those who are used to seeing me conform. to me, they are exercises in my creativity, and more importantly, in self-discovery.
right now, just a few days new at being "truly grownup", i find that one of the most important lessons that i hold to be true is that i realize more how short life really is. and how ridiculously tedious it is to have to care about what everyone around me thinks. at the end of it all, the only opinion that matters is my own. and whether people agree with me or not will not change that.
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