If we were having coffee, I’d first pull you over to the window where my desk is, and show you the view of the community garden across the street, and the natural light that spills in, even on a cloudy day. Though the past few weeks have been more stressful than usual (moving apartments does that), I am grateful for the light and the window.
And I’d also offer you a slice of cake or other homemade food item. I turned twenty-five this week, and I like the idea of a Hobbit-style birthday—giving things on the day rather than receiving them. And let me know if you want a refill on anything; I’m also the type to celebrate a birthday for a whole week.
Twenty-five is a funny year. I don’t quite know what to make of it. Am I young? Old? Am I right where I need to be, with all my uncertainty and discomfort? Am I ahead? Or behind?
So far, the first week of being twenty-five has been dedicated to playing catch-up. I feel like my work life has both picked up pace and maintained a steady footing, so now I’m trying to get everything else up to scratch. I opened my personal planner for the first time in months, started filling in the pages, and cleaned off my desk to signal the start of something new. I caught up with a former coworker over coffee on Thursday, caught up with another friend over the phone yesterday morning, and wrote and sent some letters I had been meaning to write and send.
Now that I have things more or less organized, I am turning my thoughts to questions that are further-reaching. Where am I going to be in the next year? The next five years? The next ten? When I was a teenager, I barely believed that I would make it to be twenty-five, let alone what I would be doing when I got here, or after. Answering these questions now is harder than I thought it would be.
How about you? What comes to mind when you think “twenty-five”?
This post was created as part of #weekendcoffeeshare. Check out more posts in the hashtag.
Caroliena Cabada 
Happy birthday! 25 is young..
Thanks! And yes, I’m coming around to the idea that 25 is still young 🙂
Thanks for commenting!
When I hear 25 I think oh so young and a world of opportunity ahead 🙂 xx
Thanks for commenting! Yes, the world still lies before me. I’m excited for what the next year will bring 🙂
Not so long ago twenty-five meant having purple/blue streaks in my hair, thumbing my nose at the people who thought writing a hobby and not a profession (especially at the weddings of friends when “well-meaning” people asked when I was going to stop playing and be a responsible adult and have a family of my own), the only five-year plan was to be a writer (with no clear idea what it really meant in this new era of publishing) and being a slave to the Muse was all that mattered.
Not long after that, I lost the streaks, became informed about the other side of writing (publishing and all it means) and realised that writing is a profession, not a playpen (so no matter what I feel, I will work). I still thumb my nose at those who don’t get it, I’m still a slave to the Muse (though I work even if the Muse abandons me), and my five-year plan is in constant flux – I know where I want to be, it’s just the path that changes as opportunity arrives.
So, when I hear “twenty-five” I see a world of opportunity and change, wonder and chances – and when you know where you want to go, saying yes will get you there in ways you could hardly have imagined.
Happy birthday 🙂
Thanks for this amazing message. It’s so interesting to hear what people go through when they are so thoroughly and unapologetically a writer. I still feel a little bit like I have to hide it, until I make a big splash and publish a novel or something along those lines.
I’m glad you’re still writing, even when the muse isn’t there. It reminds me of one of my favorite Maya Angelou quotations of all time: “What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’…. And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.'”
Thanks again for stopping by. Here’s to the five-year plan and opportunities ahead 🙂
Happy Birthday!! Thanks for the cake offer and that view sounds lovely 🙂
25 to me reminds me of my life before things changed quite dramatically for me and the start of both losing and then finding myself. You are at 25 years old exactly who and where you are – nothing more, nothing less.
Thank you! 25 seems to be a great in-between age where people are still figuring out what they’re doing and where they’re going.
Thanks for stopping by. Don’t forget your slice of cake! 🍰
I’m still working it out and I’m 42! Thanks for the cake 🙂
Happy Birthday from a fellow birthday celebrator who also celebrates in long weeks of merriment — do consider giving yourself more than a single, measly week….And, my dear, 25 is just starting out. Anyone who tells you different doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I get to say that cause I’m way older — and that’s one of the joys of getting older, being old enough to know that you don’t have to know everything right now and to begin to understand that you never will….