The Last of the Twenty Somethings: Press Restart

My lovely people! It’s been a while and I don’t have a reason why. I have just been doing the things. It is the first of April now and we are in my favorite time of year – Spring time. The days are starting to get longer and the weather nicer. I know it is now safe to start my birthday countdown. But this one is a little different since I’m hitting a milestone birthday. Not since twenty one have I thought this hard about turning the next age. Reflection has set in deep and I thought it would be a great series to write. If for nothing else for my own memories to look back on. I will also be celebrating my first Blogversary (did I just make up a word?) on my birthday as well- yay me!

My birthday is thirty one days from today. I have always been one of those girls. You know the ones obsessed with their birthday. I dont know exactly what it is but its definitely something magical about the anniversary of the day your life began. I love a reason to celebrate myself and what better reason than the day I came into the world. Seriously though being able to see another year is always a blessing and I don’t take it for granted. But the time has come again where I am hitting one of the major milestones- thirty.

Thirty. Its actually kind of weird to say but fun at the same time. “I’m thirty” sound adult adult lol. As a child I don’t think I ever thought about being thirty. Yes I thought about sixteen, eighteen, twenty one…you know the fun milestone birthdays. But thirty? Wow.

Knowing that this May I will turn thirty has really made me reflective about the last ten years. What I did and didn’t do, my accomplishments and my missteps. It’s all quite overwhelming. I’ve talked previously about how for some reason society has made thirty the end all be all for all of your accomplishments. And if I am being transparent I have not put the big check mark next to many of mine. It’s been hard to accept the fact that I’m not where I thought I would be by now. It’s been even harder to show myself grace and say that it’s okay that I’m not.

As I step into another decade I have made the decision to press restart and allow myself a blank page. Although many at this age are settling into their careers, families and lives I’m not quite there. My twenties I spent a lot of time making my life decisions because I felt obligated to do so. Much of it was to gain approval and not be deemed a disappointment. One major way that came into play was with my education choices.

This next thing is very scary for me to say but I need to. I need to see it written and stop running from it. After the years of school and two degrees I, Patience, dont know what I want to do career wise. There. I said it. And I definitely shed a few tears as I wrote that. And it’s not that I haven’t known for years but again – when you feel the need to make certain decisions to get approval it gets you in situations. One of the consequences of making such decisions is that I am not in a career I enjoy and not reaping the financial benefits from it that I feel I should at this point in my life. But I have decided to give myself full permission to start fresh from this moment. Give myself the okay to explore what is is that will bring me fulfillment.

For so long I have chastised myself for not being strong enough to break my need to want to please the people in my life thus doing things that have not ultimately brought happiness now in my life. I never took the time out to really decipher what I enjoyed, what I loved and what I needed to be fulfilled in life. But now at soon to be thirty I know that it is never to late to go on that journey to figure those things out and I want to now more than ever.

During this series I am going talk through the self discoveries I have made recently and what the plan is going forward with this new found information. Really my entire life has been based in others opinions and that’s just not the way I want to live the rest of the years God allows me. I don’t think this is going to be easy to write – a lot of it will be opening up in a way I havent yet on my blog. I want to be real. To help myself and maybe even help someone else. The person that may feel that it’s too late to change their life. I am one of those people but this is going to be about changing my narrative for myself. Not cutting my life short by judging myself on what I haven’t accomplished by the mere age of thirty. Or forty. You fill in the number that fits your life.

By God’s grace I will have many more years to bring the vision of my life to fruition. Not the life that anyone else thinks I should be living or the life that I THOUGHT I would be living. I still have breath in my body so time is not up for me yet. Although it doesnt feel it it, I do have time. And I’m allowing myself to use it. This is where I am. I’m pressing restart. Come with me as I journey through the last of the twenty somethings.