What I Talk About When I Talk About "We are The Choices We Make"

My birthday is in April, and this year I will be turning 25 years old.

Even three, four years ago, I would've thought of a 25 year old woman as "mature" or "confident" or "nuanced." Today, three months shy of my 25th anniversary, I realized how far I am from all of those words I used to associate this age with.

Why? Here's my train of thoughts:

My mother was exactly my age today when she married my father, a good 36 years ago. She was 24, but three months away from her 25th birthday. She had been working for a couple of years, I guess, but had been dating my father for about five years. Nineteen months after that, her first child was born. She was 26 years and four months old.

I was cooking dinner in my kitchen tonight and, looking back at a series of failures I've had in that area of my apartment, I thought to myself, how exactly did women my age do it? I don't even know how to cook rice properly. I don't know how to make eggs the way my mother used to do it. I don't know anything! 

As if I wasn't feeling bad enough, I thought of my friends who are now married with baby--babies, even. They're my age. They got married some time ago, even younger than the age my mom married my dad. They have completely different lives from me now. They hear cries night and day. They carry babies. They have regular sex with their husbands. They post pictures of their small families...

Did I feel a tinge of envy?

Maybe. I'm not sure what to name that feeling. I don't think it was, though.

I guess it was a sense of my mind wandering off to a foreign land, an alternate universe where I am living my friends' lives.

I couldn't help it. I couldn't help but think of what if? Because I know the state that I am in... and I don't think I have ever seen myself being as happy as the pictures they post of them with their babies.

Because if the question is whether I'm ready for that kind of life, I will be sure to answer that there is no way that I am ready for it right now, let alone a few years back.

But what if I made myself ready? Just... what if? Will I ever look as happy as they do in those pictures?

Once Upon a Snowy January

We were sitting down on my couch, a soft ballad that I've never heard of playing on the TV that shows a video of somebody playing guitar in the middle of a bright forest. I looked outside, snowflakes come falling down as if dancing right outside the window. It was a gloomy day, but somehow felt bright enough to paint a beautiful picture in my head.

You were eating toast with your legs folded up in the cushion. I was just happy with my morning coffee, resting my elbow with an enormous mug on the backrest. You were talking stories about your high school years. Your mother and sisters. Your late father. The family you left and missed the most.

I did not know what I was supposed to feel about you. Until today.

Looking at you, listening to your stories. Seeing your laugh and smile. There is a voice inside my head that softly whispers, "Take a mental picture of this moment and keep it in your mind."

And I did.

So that even though it will not work well, even though this very moment was the end of it all... Even though this moment was a sign of good bye

.

.

.

I will still have this moment.

Maybe not you. Maybe not the happiness that slipped into my heart like a cup of hot tea on a cold day just like this... but this moment.

I will always have this moment.

And that would be enough.

A Good Year

Welcome to another episode of year end review, where I try to give you the very essence of the past year in my personal life. This page has always been personal, and it's always been awfully me (I don't even try to make a witty URL at all). The reason why I believe in telling you these things, whoever you are, my dear reader, is because I know that you're wonderful human beings and if you keep coming to read something I post here, it's because you care. Not curious, but care. The older I get, the more I realize that it's not everyday you meet someone who actually cares. But you guys do. Thank you for reading (which in a way, for listening) what I had to say. I can never thank you enough.

Next year, I'll be 25 years old. I have been hearing about the infamous "quarter-life crisis" from my friends and I know that they are real. Of course, people in their 30s that I know will just roll their eyes, "Oh come on, don't be dramatic." but I trust my friends and if they feel it, it must be real. I think as a society, we should be mature enough by now that whatever someone say they feel is real. Don't shrug it off. Don't say it's not real or it's just them. That is exactly how so many mental health issues went undiagnosed.

I feel like 2017 have been preparing me for that very crisis. This year, I've been traveling and moved to a different country by myself. I've tried saving up some money. I've tried being alone with myself a lot and thus facing my own fears, coming to terms with who I am and what I am. It's been absolutely exhausting, but the result hasn't been absolutely devastating.

On the contrary, I feel like I've been doing some things a little differently than I used to do it. It's probably because the circumstances have changed: the available time, resources, space... many things, really. But also, maybe because I was anticipating the quarter-life crisis that's gonna come at me in mere four months. After all, worst comes to worse, I have to be ready, right? I have to survive. I have to, somewhat, be strong enough to do that.

God, this has been a wonderful year. People say time flies when you're enjoying it, and it's just what happens to me and 2017.

Thank you for this opportunity to live up 2017. I will forever remember this year as the year where things just take a turn into the better.