Twenty-Five: The Scary Number.

   Twenty-five is a rough age. All your life, you look forward to being twenty-one so you're allowed to have some kind of freedom. Then you spend the next few years being glad that you can actually go out and have a nice time with no parents or police looking over your shoulder. Twenty-two is cool, Twenty-three is cool, Twenty-four is cool and then BAM twenty-five comes knocking, and suddenly it's not so cool anymore. You're only five years away from being thirty. You start analyzing every aspect of your life. Where is it going? Why aren't I married? Why don't I have kids? Chances are by now; you know several couples who are getting married and several couples who have children. Then you start to think "well my parents were married by now" or "all my uncles and aunts were married by now" or "wait my parents already had TWO kids by the time they were twenty-five!"

Then you start thinking about all the things in life that you haven't done yet. I still haven't traveled to Paris... I still haven't published a book... Then you start analyzing the person you're in a relationship with, if you are in any at all. You begin to as yourself , are they the one? If not, why am I wasting my time?  I'm almost twenty five, very near thirty and then forty! What if I'm forty and all my friends are married and I'm not?! I'm over-analyzing, maybe this doesn't happen to everyone, but it’s certainly happening to me. I will be turning twenty-five in about a month. Right now I’m extremely jealous of my twenty-two year old sister.

Wait, what if I get married in the next five years and then I have a family and never get a chance to do the things I want to do? I started reading some blogs lately about people traveling to different countries and pursuing their dreams. Then I remembered when I was back in high school and we'd take school trips and do all sorts of activities and life was so fun. I didn't even appreciate it then. Now I feel like all I do is go to school, come home and watch movies. I once felt like I was too old to do some of the things I did in high school, but too young to settle down and have a family yet. Or was I? Maybe I'd be ready if I met the right person.

Hmmm... What if my future husband was out there and I'm missing out because I'm wasting time doing nothing? I know I don't want to end up thirty and the only one out of my friends that isn't married! Good thing my friends are younger anyway.

Recently I started picturing my whole life, what my future would look like as a dentist. I asked myself what I was passionate about. Well, there are two things I've always loved since I was a kid: writing and music. I think it may be a little late for me to become the next Mariah Carey or Stephen King, but that doesn't mean that I can't do both in my spare time. You can always make time for the things you love. Can’t you?

Hmmm… twenty-five, the scary number.

All in all, I think twenty-five is an age where you discover who you really are. What I mean by that is finding who we REALLY are; what we've always loved deep down that makes us different from everyone else. I think as young adults, we know what our passions are, but as we get older we get so caught up in life we forget about it. In high school, you don't care about things you feel passionately about. You care about crushes and fairy tale romance. Then after high school, you care about where you're going to go to college and where you're going to work. You don't worry about if your current boyfriend or girlfriend is "the one" or if your job is the job of your dreams. But then when you turn twenty-five, you realize you have to think about these things. After all, you're reaching adulthood!

What a scary thing.

I'm still twenty-four though, one more month to go, but truthfully I'm already analyzing every aspect of my life and envying the people who have chased their dreams more than I have.  I've always wanted to publish a book... but hey, writing is what I love and I guess that’s a start to my writing ambition or maybe not.  Who knows? I'll let you know how it turns out.