growing aches.
I think this is the first time in my life I’ve ever felt vaguely displaced and uncomfortable before my birthday, maybe I do sort of understand people who have a love-hate relationship with their birthdays now.
Maybe it’s because I’m officially hitting the quarter life mark in less than 2 weeks and I’m annoyed that I can no longer classify myself as “early 20s” and it’s “mid-20s” from here on out, or maybe it’s because I still feel like I should’ve had myself figured out by now.
It feels like I’m stuck in the weird cusp of feeling both ancient and young at the same time, I now have to age check the men who hit me up at bars/clubs and feel like some sort of cougar every time I hear them being a few years younger than me.
It’s about time I retire from the nightlife and adopt classier ways of engaging in my vices (e.g: intimate wine bars and tapas with friends instead), goodbye early morning ramens and ripping out my false lashes on the curb while waiting for our Uber.
I often times still feel very emotionally immature for a woman turning 25. I still let a lot of petty things get to me and get sucked into the vortex of overthinking past things that cannot be undone, the sacrifice often being the way I fail to live in the present until it’s much too late and it’s yet another time I regret and ponder about a few weeks down the line.
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I still feel bouts of insecurity whenever I compare myself to other women around me/on social media even though I should know enough to realise that it’s never truly a competition. I still feel like crying tears of frustration every time I stare back at my face scattered with acne scars and fresh breakouts, and wonder why I can’t be one of those girls with naturally dewy skin.
I still get anxious sometimes whenever my friends don’t text for days and assume the worse (do they think I’m pesky to be around?) even though I often also take my time responding whenever I’m drowned in something more pressing at the moment like work deadlines. I still tie my self-worth to how frequent one reaches out to me, as if there couldn’t possibly be any other reason why they’d not initiate something other than the fact that they don’t actually like me.
I still have a hard time actually chilling out with no thoughts in my head because it’s ingrained in me to have at least 3 other tabs open in my mind, always needing something small (even if it’s just the ending of a book) to fixate on because otherwise it doesn’t feel like I’m maximizing my youth and exuberance enough.
(Also for those interested in my new year’s resolution of reading 100 books this year, I’m 76 in!)
It’s been 3 years since I’ve last been in a proper relationship, and the longer it gets the more I question my ability to actually be a good romantic partner to someone else. In the past, I’ve always been the more aloof and selfish one and I’m not sure if anything have changed. If anything, I might be more incorrigible because of how accustomed I am living by myself without having to compromise to anyone else.
I thought by now I’d be having a long-term stable relationship leading up to marriage (pretty sure my mum told me she got married at my age), but I’m still so unsure of myself that it feels irresponsible getting involved with anyone who has a clear plan of what they want.
I know no one is going to be perfect, but I always seem to have a habit to tweak and improve one thing after another about myself, upholding myself to a standard I only dare impose on myself and never on others.
There’s still so much thing I’ve yet to figure out, but I know that’s exactly what your 20s are for. I think what I need to next learn is to be more lenient on myself, and the fact that you do not have to be perfect to be loved.
