My mum said she wished she could get me a car. I don’t know why but this meant quite a deal to me. I could see that she really wanted to be able to do that kind of thing for me.
By this point in life, I am hoping my parents stop doing things for me and I am able to do things for them. I don’t feel like I owe it to them; my parents have never made me feel like I was a retirement investment. They have simply sacrificed for my sake out of love. I want to love them in this way too. I want to love them in a way where I can do things for them.
Last year, when I quit my job, I was a little nervous about telling them. I wasn’t sure what they would say. It wasn’t like I was without a plan (although for the most part, I was), I just wanted my plan to be good enough for them. When I did tell them, they were incredibly gracious to me. They did not question my choice; the questions they asked were simply to understand me. I want to be able to love them in a different way, an active way. Living where I am in life, I don’t know how to.
I don’t know if I learnt any great lessons in the last year of my life. So far, my 20s have been different versions of the same wants, the same fears, and the same struggle. Over the past couple of days, completely unrelated to turning a new age, I have been feeling stagnant. Not like I should be somewhere else, not like I should be married or richer or more successful. I just, I am just tired of here, this point, this place, with all the same fears and anxieties from when I turned 21. I write a letter to my next age every year same as I write a letter to December 31st every year. This year, I will do neither. This year, I am tired of wanting all the same things. What will come will come.
This year, I am tired of dreaming some dream of independence, of setting deadlines for when I move out, when I start earning more, when I get to do something else. I have spent so much time worrying about these things. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to live on tight budgets. I don’t want to feel anxiety about where I should be, where I want to be, where I have been trying to get to for so many years.
I know that saying it now won’t magically mean I stop feeling all these feelings I have felt this year. I don’t expect to suddenly stop caring about these things. But I hope to spend time caring about other things. I want to spend more time doing things. I want to spend more time creating things. I want to open my document titled ‘i am curious about this’ and I want to satisfy that curiosity. I want to write again, frequently, about real life and about imagined things. I want to read often once again. I want to be consumed by the things I don’t question.
My friends. If you word associate with me, friendship comes out at the very top. I am nothing without them. Without friends, I am truly alone. They keep me here, they keep me smiling and they are responsible for most of the progress I make in life. Without losing control and autonomy of my life, I feel like they are responsible for it. They have gotten me here, wherever here is. In this new year, I will continue to prioritise and cherish them and the moments we share, even the ones I feel pull ever so slightly away. I love them so immensely. And to my sisters, some of my closest friends in the world. I know the bulk of the time we will spend together is likely in our past. I cannot wait to be adult friends with them, to visit and tease and to talk of things that are important and unimportant.
I don’t know what 25 will be. I don’t plan for it to be anything. I will just do it and I know I won’t be doing it alone. I never do anything alone these days.
