Today I turned 25! And though I had planned not to work at all today, taking a full day off, I can’t imagine not writing on my favourite day of the year. This year, instead of a big party and seeing a lot of people, I wanted to live out my ultimate, perfect, lazy “Sunday” for my birthday. And I really wanted to remember it, so, here I am writing about it.
I spent my birthday at my parent’s house, my childhood house, my home. I had already taken a day off work so the night before my brother and I had decided to have a few drinks (as one does on the eve of their birthday) and start Maniac so I woke up relatively late, without an alarm in place.
And the first thing I did was grab my book, set myself up outside and start reading. It was glorious!
It has been such a luxurious day. And it gave me time to think about this past year and everything that happened and what I’ve learnt from it all. So, I wanted to diverge from our normal topic to take a moment to record a great 25th birthday by writing down the best things I learnt during 24:
Turn off notifications on your phone
This is something that really helped me this past year. So much so that my phone has been silent all day today. If i want to find out what someone has sent me, I can open my phone and check, but I don’t hear the annoying little pings alerting me to every little thing going on (and let’s face it, it’s the internet, there’s a lot going on, and a lot I don’t particularly need to know). For the last few years, my phone never left my side. I would get anxious without out it, but I would get anxious with it by me as well. I couldn’t win.
I was constantly waiting for a reply back or a message to come from someone that I was hoping wanted to get in touch, or work/school related email which I would insist required immediate attention. And after a particularly awful experience, I decided enough was enough and I turned all my notifications off. Over the past year I have learnt how to separate myself from my phone. I go to it when I want to, I answer messages when I want to and I don’t answer when I don’t want to. Best of all, I have gained control over myself and my time, it no longer being taken up by the constant underlying need to check my notifications and I am so so happy that I did that.
Finding your face
This sounds super weird but bear with me. Anyone who knows me well can attest to the fact that I am a makeup fiend. I love all things makeup, buying, wearing, applying on others, experimenting, watching videos on it, the creativity. I adore it all. I didn’t feel confident without it. But as time went on, I couldn’t understand why I still felt insecure and uneasy even with my best face of makeup and why after a while, I didn’t even feel like I looked good.
In the end, it really had nothing to do with makeup. But I realised that I was just using it to hide from the fact that putting on my “best face” using makeup was just a way from me to avoid acknowledging that I didn’t like the face, the persona, that I was putting forward to everyone. Now, I know that I feel my best, and my most confident, when I’m actively working to better the person that I am and making the effort to put that face forward; the face of the person that I am unabashedly working to be. And of course, a good face of makeup can help that occasionally.
Feeling like you’ve hit rock bottom at any age is okay
There have been some major speed bumps in my life over the past year. Some that I continue to have to work through and others that I am glad to see in my rear-view mirror forever. But one of the things that I found incredibly difficult to work past was the feeling that I was too old to be having such a crisis.
They say that comparison is the thief of joy and honestly it’s true. I was watching my friends and peers achieving and succeeding in a way that makes their progression obvious and visible. Objectively, I knew that I was working towards my goals, but not seeing an end product or an overt sign of success, coupled with the aforementioned speed bumps, made me feel like I wasn’t going anywhere. And feeling low about feeling like made me feel even worse because I thought that I shouldn’t be having a crisis at my age.
Well, you know what, that’s bull. And not only do I know that now, I actually believe it and revel in it. Some people may find me weird, anti-social or wasting away my youth because I’m doing things they would never do, or they would claim I have no drive, but it never bothers me. Simply because I know who I am, and I know who I want to be and I am happy to say that I am on the road to being that person, so in my books that counts as success.
~S~
