PROGRESS! I just had my 27th birthday and I finally feel like I'm easing into my own skin.
I turned 27 two weeks ago, and, as birthdays usually do, it has triggered a lot of existential thoughts in me. I have had such a dynamic 20’s experience, and I’m SO proud of the progress I’ve made, but the thought that I’m now in my “late 20’s” seems unreal. I think of characters in films and tv shows that are meant to be my age, and it seems laughable to suggest we are in the same age group. You know what I mean? In some ways I feel ageless. None of the numbers seem right.
But then I'll notice a change in my behavior and realize that I have been aging, all this time.
I am becoming more like my dad every day. It’s really a strange thing to be aware of. I sneeze like my father. I drive in silence in the early morning just like he always did. As I kid I could never understand this. But now I understand that early morning thoughts are delicate, vulnerable, raw. Loud. I’m getting older and it never felt possible. When I was a kid, I’d think of being 17 and that felt so old! I didn’t fantasize about what it would like to be 27. We’re now as old as (or older than) Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt! That seems weird. But I’m alive and it’s cool and I just feel everything is starting to happen. I’m excited and proud as fuck of the woman I am and will continue to become. I made a vow earlier this year to begin the shedding of A LOT of weight. Physical, mental, emotional. I want to stay true in documenting that progress and updating when I remember to! I’m genuinely not sure of the weight I’m at now, because I am focusing less on the scale and more on intuitive self care (eating healthily, being active, drinking water, regulating my sleep schedule). With that being said, I do think that I’ve lost some physical weight since my last post. But this one is more about the emotional weight I’ve been slowly but surely shedding. <3
I think that something really beautiful happened in my heart/bod a few weeks ago.
I see my peers buying houses, getting married, having children-and it feels so grown up. Those are not the things I am doing right now. I am happy for them, but I also feel like I exist in a different timeline than them. I’m saving money, following my creative passions and writing and making art. I'm piecing together a life that is rich, and full and one I'm so proud of. But I'm also still trying to figure out how to cook a good steak and put together furniture and take care of a dog. My friend is pregnant, and she's the first one in our friend group to do it. When we were teens, we used to drive late at night, up a mountain at the edge of town. We would listen to Simon and Garfunkel up to the top and then I’d sit in the bed of her truck and she’d speed the whole way down, playing “Volare” at full volume. Sometimes we’d fuck off and drive to nearby states just to be in the car, listening to music. She was a musician-a super talented trombone player-and we bonded deeply about our shared love for all types of music. The day she realized she had no passion for the path she was on, she dropped out of college, and we drove to California that night and slept on the beach. She joined the navy on a whim weeks later. It lead to a 6 year military career through which she met her fiancé-and eventual father of her child! (It’s actually really strange, considering she’s really, REALLY not the type to join the military. But it’s also kind of exactly what you’d expect because it was a completely in the moment, caution to the wind decision. Very on brand.) I know that seems like a weirdly specific /unrelated tangent, but the whole idea just trips me out! She was one of the most hectic (in the best way) people I knew, besides myself, and now she’s going to be a mom. And she’s going to be SO GOOD AT IT. I am beyond excited to hold my first niece in my arms for the first time. Time is simply a surreal thing to watch pass.
And while I said I feel so far away from that time in life, I know, with this weird ease, that it will come. I haven't fallen in love in a way that makes me want marriage or children yet, but I think I will someday. I have a lot of goals in my career and a lot of traveling to do, and I just know that I have a lot to learn and experience before that chapter in my life comes. Knowing this, and feeling more at peace about it is such progress for me. I am so appreciative of being a witness to my own maturation. I realized the other day that I lived through some things that many people will not experience. And went so deep into darkness for a while. But I came out on the other side. I am so capable, in ways I never knew. I’m strong and resourceful and fucking kind and compassionate, and I am everything I hoped I would be as a woman. I think I really grew up at 26. It was a year that was painful and uncomfortable, and the stretch marks on my soul from that sudden growth are deep. But I did it. And it was the last year of a type of….suspended girlhood, I think. I don’t know how to explain it. But a few weeks ago, I just woke up and felt like a WOMAN. Not a girl….not something almost there….I just felt as old as I was. I feel the beginning of my womanhood these days. I never have before. I feel sensual and tough and honest and open and so strong. I feel romantic and feminine and sharp. I am not afraid of most things, I am proud to say. I hope for myself that 27 is my year of bloomability. I have a best friend who didn't make it past 24. Each year I have lived after that is a year he never got. I think about this often and it encourages me to be braver than I think I would have been. I will take what I’ve learned and just become an unstoppable force because of it. It’s scary not to take the same steps or paths as other people, and I may even be considered a late bloomer of sorts. But I always have known where I’m going. And I ’m not questioning myself or my path. I’m happy to be on it. I have fear, but it’s not the the place from which I make my decisions. So I think I’ve lost a lot of fear, ya’ll! And it’s just this quiet, kind of amazing thing for me.
These pictures of me on my birthday are a good representation of where I’m at right now. Not perfect by any means, but like….also not half bad. I’m doin’ my best and I’m relaxing and rolling with it. I just feel a wee bit more peace settling inside of me, which I welcome. I still have a long way to go, and I will for the rest of my life. But I think everything’s going pretty good for me on this little journey, all things considered.
PS! Next time my update will be more focused on physical, hopefully, as I'm phasing into a more measured, structured meal and exercise plan as of this week. :)
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