Thoughts Before a Quarter Century

It's that time, all my friends and college classmates are turning 25. Every week I get a new email or text about birthday festivities and travel plans. My own 25th birthday is just a few days away and while I am very excited about the weekend's festivities and foolywang I must confess I have been having quite sobering thoughts.

As a child I remember thinking about what 25 was going to look and I will confess, the 25 of my childhood dreams looked absolutely nothing like this. I just knew I would be engaged to some great guy, finishing up medical school (yes, I was going to be a doctor once upon a childhood) and everything would be close to perfect. After all I was going to be an adult and life is really easy and cookie cutter like as an adult. Sike. The truth is I am a far cry from all of those things, especially the everything being close to perfect part.

At almost 25 my life is complicated and full of uncertainty. I find myself single, unemployed and back home with mom. What a way to start the next quarter century, huh? I'm not having a pity party, I am merely acknowledging the major facts. These major facts have lead my to a major conclusion that I will use to govern my life for at least the next quarter century. Life doesn't always follow the plans we make. I know is seems really simple but I think we take this small nugget of truth for granted more often than not.

This time last year I had a high stress job that left little time for a personal life while I lived in Orlando, but it was a job I loved 80 percent of the time so it was totally cool. This year, I have a thriving personal life and while my relationship status is unchanged I'm actually dating someone pretty great. The economy snatched my high stress job away, and that was a tough pill to swallow, but pill swallowed. Life goes on.

Through it all there are a few things that have been steadfast. I have a wonderful and supportive family, amazing friends and unshakable faith. These are the factors that have kept me stable when everything in me was wanting to fall apart. Life doesn't always follow the plans we make, but that's not our problem, life is doing what it's supposed to do- make us better. We have to do our part and keep planning, be ready to readjust and enjoy the ride.