Thoughts on 25

Song of the Day: Lullaby of Resembool by Senju Akira

The above song perfectly encompasses how I feel today.

As I sit here, listening to the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Score - it's a beautiful thing, and has been a source of writing inspiration for some years now - I realize with a kind of mild surprise that I'm incredibly happy, and I'm incredibly blessed.

I mean, sitting at my desk, conducting the music (or rocking back and forth to the beat), and grinning like a fool kind of happy. And yes, I could go on and pontificate about how happiness is ephemeral and mercurial in nature. But why ruin a good thing?

Since my twenty-first, my birthdays haven't been particularly cheery. I wasn't miserable, to clarify. Always with loved ones, and always in a pleasant state, I did not hate my birthdays. Still, it's been a while since the last time I was chuffed to see a new year begin. Twenty-two was the first birthday after graduating college, and I was very confused and lost in my life. Twenty-three came around right after my cousin passed away, and I was very much in the depths of grief. Twenty-four came after a year in which I was diagnosed with OCD and anxiety; I was tired. In a lot of ways, I felt as directionless at twenty-four as I did at twenty-two.

I also watched a lot of my goals pass me by.

It happens without my realizing it, each year on my birthday: I set silent goals, make private wishes of which only my subconscious is aware. And each year, I feel a kind of disappointment - not in my birthday, not with the company I keep around my birthday. Rather, a disappointment in myself, and uncomfortable awareness of the fact that I'm not a kid anymore. It's that kind of guilt that clenches a fist in your stomach and encroaches on your sleep. I silently remind myself of the goals that I didn't know I set. We can quibble about the mental healthiness of setting these goals and feeling this dismay another day, on a day that's not my birthday.

When I turned twenty-four I set those silent goals, as I do every year. And through the course of this year, I saw every single one of these goals come to fruition. I left my parents' house and began an independent life; I got a job that I love, and left a job in which I was going nowhere; I learned a lot about handling my anxiety and finding a more balanced life; most importantly, I finished my book, my only conscious goal. Twenty-four was jam packed, and I am very proud of every single accomplishment.

Yet the reason I'm happy isn't that I used twenty-four so well. I'm happy because I have a very good feeling about twenty-five. There are, as always, dark things in life and in the world, and yet they seem so much less scary in the light. On my twenty-fifth birthday, a profound sense of optimism woke with me, a hunch that this is going to be an excellent year.

And the thing about any feeling, good or bad, is that it tends to build on itself. If I'm already starting twenty-five so well, imagine where I'll be at twenty-six.