Reflections on Turning 27

There’s nothing like a birthday to make you evaluate your life. I turned 27 on February 17th and had three profound realizations and learning experiences in the days leading up to and following my birthday. 

A hike to Inspiration Point in the San Gabriel Mountains the day after my birthday.

At the start of the week, I had a conversation with a close friend of mine about entering new phases of our lives. She just turned 29 a month or two ago and is preparing to move away from our hometown for the first time in her life. She described her need to do something new as a “profound itch” and the phrase stuck with me. She mentioned a desire to be in a new circumstance that will foster her independence and allow her to become the woman she knows she can be, but feels unable to access living with her parents, people who see her the way they’ve seen her since she was a child, in a hometown that doesn't’ exactly encourage change. 

The need to enter a new phase of life, to experience circumstances that let you realize the person you know you can be is a constant gnawing feeling deep in your gut coloring your moods, your outlook on life, your energy and productivity, your relationship with yourself and your loved ones, everything. Until that itch is scratched, or you are decidedly on your way toward scratching it, you are a shadow of yourself and of the person you can be. I’m well acquainted with the feeling.

I think for most of my life, I’ve been dealing with a constant sense of being unsettled. 

It’s always been in the background for me. Maybe it’s just been a vague dissatisfaction with my life. In most ways, my life is incredible, and being able to recognize that has improved my days and outlook drastically. However, that general dissatisfaction lingers. It seems to stem from a sense that I am meant for some life other than the one I’ve been living. 

There have been two times where that sense of dissatisfaction essentially disappeared - when I was in college and when I studied abroad. Finally my life started to resemble the kind of life I envisioned for myself. It wasn’t perfect, but it felt close. Those phases gave me hope that the life I desire for myself is possible, if I just do what it takes to make it a reality.

My friend, though quite different from me in her intellectual pursuits and hobbies, also has the sense that the place we live, the place we grew up, doesn’t have the resources necessary for us to make who we are inside a living, breathing reality. My decision to go to graduate school in Scotland in order to access my truest self has inspired my friend that people, even ones from our hometown, can in fact get out and make drastic changes to their lives simply because they feel right to them.

After an incredible amount of self-reflection and soul searching, I finally feel confident saying that I know who I am. I’ve both found and created myself over my lifetime, but especially over the past few years when I’ve felt most dissatisfied with my situation. I now have a solid foundation of self-knowledge and acceptance. 

I’m ready to release my whole, authentic self into the world, but feel the shackles of habit and familiarity limiting me.

There is still plenty more of myself to unearth and create, but I think I’ve outgrown what I can do in my current circumstances. It’s time to reach that next phase of life.

Turning 27 feels like a daunting phase. I know anyone even a few years older than me will likely roll their eyes at that. I’ve been told countless times that I’m still a baby. Regardless, I can’t help but feel that itch to enter a new phase of life grow stronger every day. I now feel fully ready to embrace the life I’ve always dreamed of, but it’s still just out of my reach and it officially feels like I’m wasting precious years I could be spending living my best life. 

However, the other two lessons I learned over the past week are assuaging my fears a bit. The first is that I had a precise moment where I was hit with the evidence of my own emotional maturing. When I woke up on my actual birthday, I had absolutely no plans for any sort of celebration. I had assumed that my parents had made plans for a homemade dinner and a cake, but found out midday that that wasn’t the case. I tried to ignore the feeling of disappointment as I made my own plans for a nice dinner and cake, but I won’t lie - it stung. 

The fact that I feel as though all of the special occasions of the past few years have been a dud because of the pandemic and I finally had hopes of a potentially significant celebration that were dashed added salt to the wound. It had also been an extremely stressful week and of all the days at work, Friday, my birthday, was the absolute worst in terms of stress. It was the worst I’ve had in a while, actually. 

By the time my workday ended, I was in a horrific mood. I was trying to keep it together for my mother’s sake, but I could feel myself being silly and pissy and childish. My emotions felt out of my control.

That’s been a theme throughout my life too, a sense that my emotions are so deep and overwhelming and justified that I can’t keep them in check and it makes sense for them to control me, rather than for me to control them. 

As I was driving to our local Starbucks to get my free birthday drink, I had my first opportunity of the day to just be real and honest with myself. Work was over, I was finally alone, and I was in control of my time. I let my emotions wash over me - the disappointment, the frustration at the situation and at myself for not having taken more initiative to make my birthday special. It was almost like when you’re mad at a partner for not having planned something for your birthday even though you told them you didn’t want anything special. I had told myself that it wasn’t a big deal, I wasn’t that invested in the day being special, and it really didn’t matter. It’s just another year around the sun and I don’t even like being the center of attention anyway. 

When the day finally came, I did a 180 and decided that day that I did want something special. I felt myself get angry at everyone close to me for not making that happen. I felt both ridiculous and justified and that added to all the swirling emotions. As I pulled out of the Starbucks drive through, I pulled off to the side of the road, parked my car, and prepared to cry for a bit - I deserved it. It’s my party, I can cry if I want to and all that. 

As I started to let go, I teared up a bit, but before I let everything loose, it was like something clicked in my brain. Advice I’d been intellectually aware of and telling other people for what feels like forever, but apparently not listening to myself finally hit home.

I can control my mindset, my outlook, my days. 

Through journaling and meditation, I’ve been slowly teaching myself to really have some agency in my life and I almost let myself lose it. Rather than let myself be overcome by my negative emotions, I asked myself: 

What can I do to salvage this day? What would bring me joy, make the night feel special, and still be possible with all the obstacles currently facing me?

I feel as though I’m at my best when I’m planning and problem-solving, so presenting myself with this clear challenge helped kick my brain into the right mindset. Rather than wallowing in self-pity, I could just ask myself what I wanted. 

When it came down to it, the homemade dinner I’d planned with my mom’s help, the cake my dad was picking up on his way home from work, and a movie night sounded amazing. We could do dinner and cake and sit down and watch any movie I wanted that they would all like too. Luckily my favorite movies are phenomenal and almost impossible not to like, in my not-so-humble opinion. 

Even if Mom or Dad felt too ill to do that, my mom recovering from surgery and my dad suffering a bad cold, they could go to bed early and I could watch the movie and even have a little self-care evening which I always enjoy and is pretty fucking special. 

On top of that, I had a whole three day weekend coming up that was still pretty much unplanned. That’s a gold mine right there! A trip to my favorite local boba shop and a gorgeous hike were potential weekend activities. Who can complain about that? 

Suddenly I was smiling, excited to go back home and enact this essentially foolproof plan. I’d created it in a matter of minutes and knew it was something I’d thoroughly enjoy. That moment of taking a step back and asking myself what I wanted, how I could improve the situation rather than just be upset about it, made all the difference and saved my birthday and potentially the whole weekend too. 

On top of that, making that mindset shift and creating that new plan didn’t invalidate all the intense emotions I’d been having throughout the day. It made sense that I wanted something special for my birthday. It made sense that I was frustrated with myself and my loved ones for not making a plan. It made sense that I was mourning the many missed celebrations over the past couple of years. I recognized and honored those feelings, but didn’t let them take over my day. It felt like a pretty profound moment of growth. 

That single moment led to a beautiful long weekend ringing in a new age doing exactly what I wanted, even if it wasn’t extravagant. Later that weekend, I had a talk with that same friend who is finally planning a move out of our hometown. She was talking about how frustrated she is that she’s spent her whole life in such a small bubble, not really considering the possibilities open to her. My decision to go to grad school in Scotland and move there permanently had inspired her not only to think about shifting into a new phase of life, but to think more deeply about what wonderful paths might be possible for her. 

I realized then that even incredibly intelligent people who generally shuck off the rules of society and think for themselves are still just as vulnerable to those subliminal messages about what we should want our lives to look like. 

She’d lived her whole life thinking she wanted to live in or near our hometown, find a life-partner, work at her underappreciated and underpaid job, and to one day become a mom. 

It took mounting frustration with her family for her to realize she needed a change, for that “profound itch” to come up. Now that it was there, she wasn’t sure what was next. She wasn’t clear at all on what she truly wanted. She’d lost her desire to date after numerous horrible experiences, just as I have, and dealing with the stress her family had caused made her rethink wanting to be a mother. Suddenly the pressure of being responsible for other people indefinitely wasn’t exactly appealing and I can’t blame her. 

Having had a rough few months at what she had told herself was her dream job, she wasn’t even sure what career path she wanted to follow either. She’s a super intelligent, hardcore feminist and even she was feeling lost when she started letting go of the dream of being a housewife and mother and having a traditionally feminine and underappreciated job. Not to mention she was frustrated at herself for having allowed herself to be convinced by society that that’s what she dreamed of in the first place. 

As we talked, I pointed out a few of her many impressive skills and the different paths those could lead her. She’s got what it takes to be an accountant, work in HR, work her way up to being an executive at a company she believes in, or any number of lucrative careers. She could actually get a solid 9-5, make more than a living wage, and spend her free-time volunteering at the place she thought was her dream job. She could do that all while working remotely, traveling, and essentially doing whatever the hell she set her mind to.

It’s amazing what taking a step back mentally can do for you. She realized she didn’t need to be pigeonholed into living a life of underappreciated and underpaid work, even if it was work she enjoyed. She could craft her life into anything she wanted it to be - one where she found some fulfillment through her work, but also made enough money to live on, and got the rest of her life’s purpose and fulfillment from other sources. 

Now here’s the real kicker that I pointed out to her - what she wanted her life to look like was allowed to change at any moment too. Just as she once dreamed of being a wife and mother and now didn’t want any of that, the next dream she set her sights on could become unappealing at some point too. If that does happen, she can always take a step back and re-evaluate what she wants. 

As we were having this discussion, I realized that making and changing life decisions is almost an issue of consent. Just because you consented to living a certain type of life at one point thinking it’s what you wanted doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind later. 

I told her how even though I’ve got these big plans to go to Scotland, get my master’s degree, and try to live in the UK permanently, I’m leaving myself open to the possibility that I could get there and hate it. No matter how unlikely I think that is, if it were to happen I would allow myself to change my mind. I’m allowed to come up with a new dream, a new plan that I think will make me happy. If I find I’m not enjoying myself, all I need to do is sit back and ask myself what I do want. 

Giving yourself the freedom to figure out what you actually want and go after it rather than just letting life happen to you is one of the most empowering things you can do. 

Whether that’s a career path, a relationship, a lifestyle, a place to live, or even things like your sense of style, you’re allowed to adjust and change your mind at any point. As humans, we are constantly evolving, so it makes sense that the things we want will evolve too. Give yourself the freedom to ask yourself what you want. Learning to listen to those desires can transform your life. 

When you know you’re ready to move on to a new stage of life, have the maturity and mindfulness to take a step back and control your reactions and moods, and listen to your own desires and follow them (even if they are moving targets) I truly believe that a whole world of possibility opens up to you. Being in this place now, I’m chomping at the bit to see what 27 has in store for me, and for all the years after that.