ON TWENTY-FIVE:

my mom always told me that 25 would be the best year of my life. It’s probably because she loved being 25, living abroad, independent and growing into herself. I had looked forward to 25 for a long time because of that. I felt like once I got there, I would finally be an adult, finally be me.  As it got closer, I wondered how on earth it could ever be the best year of my life, because I still had so much to figure out. I’ve always felt like a work in progress, not knowing if I have a final destination or if I’m just destined to keep molding myself into the person I’ll be. It doesn’t feel right to solidify or harden into who I am.

As I’m approaching the end of this magical age I’ve looked forward to for so long, I can’t say its been the best year of my life. I don’t know if I’ll look back on it thirty years from now and see it as a shiny highlight of my twenties. I hope so. I can say that I’ve felt more like myself this year than I ever have before.

For me, twenty-five started with heartbreak.

I’d never known a love like I had at that point in my life, and it left my life like someone resetting a bone— unexpected and excruciating and so swift; the memory of the pain being the worst part.

Twenty-five was a coming home, both literally and figuratively. I came home from California and closed a chapter I expected to be longer. I needed the months spent in the Florida heat, and in the air conditioned milieu of my parent’s home. There was anticipation for my newest adventure, and a sense of security in my fortitude—I had no lingering question within me about whether or not this was right for me. I had spent years in different places in my life, questioning my resolve and not knowing if I was doing the right thing. In some cases, I knew for sure I wasn’t. But moving to Costa Rica, living abroad, I didn’t have to think twice about it.

I can say that my month spent in Heredia for my TEFL course was one of the greatest months of my life. It lasted eons and went by in the blink of an eye. It feels like its own mosaic in the Orsay of my life, one that I’ll sit and stare at to find new little wonders and ripple effects for a long time to come.

The healing I went through in the first half of my year gave me what I needed to start my life in Costa Rica. I was this bubbly, bright, ecstatic version of myself with energy overflowing. I wanted to experience everything. I felt everything. I was collecting experiences like Christmas cards on a fridge door. I was making friends that made my heart feel ready to burst.

It took me a while to settle down and settle into life here. I knew everything wouldn’t be laden in gold forever, and part of me was excited about that. Once the rose-tint faded, I would be truly living life here: with its lows to match the highs, it’s mundanity, and its trials. If you leave a place as soon as it gets hard, you don’t ever get the clarity that comes from difficulty. So, I guess I was excited about that.

The hardest part was being forced to slow down. I had a couple months of minor health issues that kept me from going a hundred miles a minute. Mentally I was still leaping and bounding, and forcing myself to take the time to heal was a lot harder than I could have foreseen. I’m still working on a balance, and I think that’s the cool part of this. I’m here long enough to equalize and problem solve and find my own rhythm.

I can’t say that twenty-five has been the best year of my life. My life is just a huge marble slab I was given at birth, and I’ve been chiseling away at it for a quarter of a century. Sometimes a beautiful thing will take shape, and I’ll think for sure it’s going to be in the final product. But then I realize that while I was contemplating those changes, a far more beautiful molding formed.

Do I even know what I’m looking at right now? Not at all. Maybe I’m supposed to be living in the present moment right now. What I do know is that twenty-five has been an exploration into grief and healing. I’ve had a joyous, privileged life. I haven’t known hardship like many in this time know it. But I’ve had to acknowledge that despite that, grief can still be present in my life in its own way. I feel things so deeply, so radically, and putting my imposter syndrome aside, maybe I can process it all. I don’t feel like I have the right to grieve anything, (see: wonderful, joyous, privileged life above) but it doesn’t change the fact I have. Here’s something I wrote a year ago, as changes were forming and the tides in my life were turning:

the best thing that we lost

 Wow. How lucky am I to be able to write things like this. To be able to live and lose. To feel the heartbreak I was so desperate for at seventeen. For some of this life stuff to be happening, like I always dreamed it would.

I didn't think I would miss this place. I pretended like I would, to myself. I thought it would just be a memory soon enough, a bad dream to shake off.

But I'll miss the creak of the gate in our garden. The smell of roses and jasmine and lilies drifting through the windows. I'll miss the sunny days where I'm wrapped in cool air. I'll miss the mountains all around me.

I thought I wouldn't miss the me who came out here. The me who suffered here and endured here. But I can't believe I am that person. I can't believe I built something so cool, and am lucky enough to leave it behind, to miss it.

I can't believe I’ll miss the me who is out here, on my own. The me who misses my hometown, and knows the way to the beach. The me who walks to the grocery store and hikes past rattlesnakes. The me who joins dance classes, who does things she’s dreamed about for years and years. The me who makes friends, all by herself.

I've done hard things. I've become a lil chef in my own right. I've shopped for furniture and I've travelled across the Pacific Ocean. I've stared at the Hollywood sign through haze and I've seen the beach from the edge of the valley. I didn't do it the way I thought I would. But I did it.

And I have to grieve now, I guess. Grieve the person I thought I was going to be out here. Grieve the person that I actually am. Grieve the experiences that I've had out here that are singular to this time in my life. Because soon I'll be saying "I lived in Southern California." And right now I live here. It's my home, right now. 

I've come alive knowing that I can do hard things, even if I've done them a million times. Even if they still give me anxiety the million and first time. I know the me who I've tapped into these last few months is the me I want to take with me everywhere.

Hopefully more thoughts will sprout from these, because if I'm going to miss it, to mourn it, to hold it for a moment before letting it float away, I want to do it right.

I can’t say that I did twenty-five right. I can’t say it was exactly like I thought it’d be growing up. But I can say that I did it.

Thanks for reading x

-Lauren, almost 26