One week left

I turn 27 next Monday. I have a week left of being 26 (in my mid twenties) before moving on to being in my late twenties. It's not like I'm afraid of getting older, it's more like I feel as if time is slipping through my fingers. I keep trying to hold on to it but it's so defiant. I used to let it go because I had this feeling of the vastness of time. All the things I needed to do or wanted to do didn't matter because I would get to it someday. As I get older I start to feel like maybe I was too careless with it before yet at the same time I feel like I did more living then. I was less afraid, less inhibited. I was happy in that carefree way that only a teen fresh out of high school with the world before them and endless possibilities can feel. I went from feeling like I would work at a 9-5 job "for now" to "is this it?" What happened to following your dreams? Taking chances? Traveling the world? Being more spontaneous and trying new things? I let my inner hermit take the reins and now I'm not sure how to take them back and let the outgoing side of me take a chance. I don't want to look back one day and think that the saying "youth is wasted on the young" is right. I don't want to waste my youth yet I don't know how to make the best of it either.

This coming weekend I am fittingly having a theme party. You are to come dressed as who you wanted to be "one day." Back when we were kids, what did we aspire to be one day?

I have had a passion for books since I first learned to read. I remember many, many trips to the local bookmobile where I would check out as many books as I was allowed to. That continued as I got older. They were always such a comfort to me. So many summers were spent with a stack of library books. I even read them at the dinner table. I guess I never really allowed myself to think of a career in literature as a possibility and I'm not sure why. I wish I had stuck to academics instead of purposely falling behind. Now it feels as if it is too late. Logic tells me that it is not too late but my heart is so scared of disappointment that I haven't allowed myself to try. So this weekend I will let my little party give me a sort of symbolic head start. I am showing up as a "writer." Maybe the thought will become less scary if I face it head on.

It does feel like wherever I turn I am faced with signs to go for it. One of my best friends is off to another country to pursue a career in culinary arts. In the book I'm reading, (One Day)I find I sympathize with the character as she says, " 'I think you were telling me that my life was going nowhere,' and she began to laugh and cry at the same time." Even in my Instagram timeline I saw someone post "If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough." I am not sure how or where I will start but maybe writing my thoughts here on this blog can help. It might force me to be less neurotic about it all.