Duckbeek

Ah, the stereotypical mid twenties quarter life crisis. Now, I’m going to write about this from the perspective of a 25 year old. I’ll probably look back on this blog post and laugh when inevitably get older, and face different challenges. I can just imagine 40 year old me reading this and thinking, “Oh, girl you think this is hard, just wait.” That being said, there is something about being 25 and feeling like you are constantly behind in life.

My 24th birthday was probably the worst birthday I’ve ever had in my entire life. I wasn’t where I wanted to be professionally, I felt like I was constantly stressed out, and I was navigating the loneliness that can be your mid twenties. My friends and I, all with different schedules, just constantly busy. I was always so proud of my friends and all of their accomplishment, but some part of me would not stop comparing myself to them as well. My friends were off to bigger and better careers and accomplishments, whereas I felt like I wasn’t making any progress in where I wanted to be. I was so disappointed in myself.

I was so aware of the fact that I was just being hard on myself, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I felt like I was running out of time. I felt like I was disappointing my parents. I honestly just felt like the biggest loser in the world that didn’t deserve anything. I was worried about everything under the sun. You name it, I was worried about it. Everything in life just caught up to me and slapped me in the face.

Now, that was only a year ago, and I can just say that I was being a bit dramatic. When you’re in that place mentally, you can’t really see that though. If I could go back in time and talk to myself, I would give myself a massive hug, and just say, “breathe.” You can’t climb a mountain in a day, you can’t change yourself overnight, and your dreams aren’t going to come true by stressing yourself out. The amount of time I spent comparing myself to people around me, but only compared my negative attributes to their positive ones, was overwhelming. I can say with confidence now that most people my age were doing the same thing. I was never alone. I was never behind. I was never an embarrassment. I was just 24.

I’ll be 26 next year, and I’m sure I’ll find something else to stress out about, and something else to keep myself up at night with the “what ifs”. I just want to make this blog post as a reminder that I’ve gotten through it before, and no matter what happens, I can get through it again. Life has ups and downs, and that’s the beautiful thing about it. I believe in myself whole heartedly, and I’m so proud that I can say that now when that felt like an impossible task a year ago.