25

On Saturday, I'm turning 25.

 

That's a quarter of a century (as I keep getting told by my relatives!)

 

I'm not usually one to reflect & take time to look back over my life, but I was lying in bed last night & was thinking how different my life is now, to how I thought it would be.

 

When I was in Secondary school, I was apart of a group of 4 girls & we were best friends. We still are best friends in fact but I was the one in the group that they all said would be married & would have kids first (by about the time I was 21, which seemed scarily old to us back then!) This to me now seems crazy, as I was so not ready for kids or marriage at that age & still nowhere near that now. Funnily enough, one of my girls is now married & about to buy a house so we definitely guessed wrong!

 

When I was 16, I remember having the best birthday. To be fair, all have mine have been amazing, but looking back at that one, just brings back the happiest of memories. My parents hired me a coach & we took a group of my friends to West Wittering beach. We had my ipod docking station playing full blast the whole way there & back & spent the majority of the time in the coach as it was so cold on the beach. We just had time for a few photos, then it was back to eating Colin the Caterpillar Cake in the safety of the coach! At the time, I'd just started seeing my first boyfriend (we went to an all girls school so it was difficult to meet boys!) & I remember him being really annoyed that he couldn't come on the outing, despite it being organised for months & it was girls only.. duh!

 

My 18th, 19th & 20th years were a blur of parties, going out & being the most social person I could be. I was also feeling a bit lost as the majority of my friends headed off to uni after college & I was left in our small hometown, working my way up into the world. I used to look back at that time & wonder if I'd made a mistake not going to uni, but I totally stand by my decision now. Besides, I still got to see the girls when they came home at weekends & I made more friends from work. I'm sure uni would have opened a few more doors for me, but I was quite content & never really excelled in any particular subject that was worth me spending thousands of pounds studying.

 

& now we come to the past few years, where I actually feel like I haven't got much to say about them. I'm still in the same job, living in the same house with my parents & still with the same man I met when I was 21. Having the same things in my life doesn't upset me though. I'm quite an anxious person & change to me isn't usually a good thing. As my 25th year approaches on this planet, I'm starting to feel that I need to push myself, not that I particularly want too. However, this year will be full of changes, whether I like it or not.

 

James finishes uni in May / June time & are looking to move in together. All these years that I've been working & saving have been building up to this year, so I'm hugely excited to be sharing this with him. After 3 years of being long distance with him living in Gloucester, we can finally start our lives together. If I'm honest, I'm terrified but excited for our adventure.

 

So this year I've decided to embrace life. I've been quietly sitting letting it pass me by for too many years & although that's ok with me, it isn't in the long run. If I want to see a show, I'll book it. If I'm feeling adventurous & want to go on a day out, I'll plan it. If I want to meet up with an old friend, I'll organise it.

And you know why?

Because life's too short to say "I'll do it tomorrow."

 

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