Start Sweet and Then Get Mean

Today is my 27th birthday.

This feels like a singular day in my life, but it's kind of hard to pinpoint why. The most obvious reason would be that I've now crossed the arbitrary threshold that separates your "mid 20s" from your "late 20s". 27 has to be the barrier right? 26 is the last year of your mid 20s, which I think is the last period of your life where you're allowed to be kind of a fuck up and not have a concrete plan. It's still okay to wake up late and smoke weed on a weekday. At least, this is the impression that I get from the media. Most of my friends are still kind of like this. Some got married and bought houses, but most still live with roommates.

But your late 20s signal that your fast approaching 30, and by then you're supposed to have shit figured out, right?

It's not so much that I buy into this, because I don't, really, it's just that this is all sort of weighing on my mind today. Not in a negative way, necessarily, it's just sort of there.

I try to approach the inevitability of aging in a healthy way. I know that what is most important is sticking to my own ideals and staying true to what my own vision of my life is. Part of this vision is that I don't worry too much about my age, acting my age, or anything like that. I think I'm doing well at this and have carved out a pretty swell path with my brain being the metaphorical machete. But I do not live in a bubble and society's expectations do weigh on me a little bit.

Like, soon I 'm gonna need to move into a bigger apartment. My parents are probably going to start asking about marriage.

Again, hard to say why, but 27 feels a little different. Am I officially an adult now. Is it gauche to eat an entire bag of Doritos while watching professional wrestling without pants on? Cause, like, I'm not going to stop doing that.

Mostly it feels different in a good way. I'm really lucky. I finished school without any major hiccups, got a good job more or less right out of my program. My partner is wonderful and just the best. I have many good friends, all of whom care about what I'm doing and how I'm doing. They all texted me "happy birthday" today and it feels nice to know they thought about me enough to do that. Things are going well, even though the world is all kinds of fucked up, so fucked up that I know any efforts I make will not make a big difference. I guess now that I am all sorted, for the most part, I can concentrate on what I can change.

This is the first birthday in a while that I actually feel older. It's a little odd, but thanks to everyone for sticking around.