On The Edge of 26

February 21st 2021

Counting down the days until I complete another trip around the sun.

If you’ve been following my account for a while, or you know me personally, you will know I have a complicated relationship with my birthday. I haven’t been a fan of my birthday for over a decade now and I find it really difficult to request attention for myself on a day that people often deem their day every year. I am not sure if it is because I don’t handle attention well because it makes me self-conscious or if it is because of my poor past birthday experiences or the fact that I hate the pressure of planning my birthday because I am afraid people won’t have fun or if it is my fear of getting older and not accomplishing the things I want to in my life, but birthdays have left a bitter taste in my mouth for years now.

So now I am standing on the edge of 26 and I am not exactly sure where I hope to go from here. I have always been the girl of everchanging interests and passions. I never truly give up passions, but some just weigh heavier than others at different times in my life. But I always just wished I was doing “more”. I think I am doing plenty now but I feel so predictable. I always wanted to do something that made people go “wow, I can’t believe Jess did that!” as I have never been the type to make waves and branch out in any unique way, but I just haven’t found my thing.

Finding my thing is something I talk a lot about in therapy. I had this realization that I have had a lot of things throughout my life but they were never truly my things and I always felt that people’s minds would go to someone else before me when thinking of certain things. I would try to set myself apart by going above and beyond into my interests but that began to put pressure on me to perform that made the things I loved less fun.

So what are my plans for 26? Well first, I am going to be putting out my annual birthday post in 4 days “26 things for 26 years” because I think the best way to start a new age and a new year of life is to look at the previous one and see what you can take away from it.

Next I sort of want to set goals. I want to lose some weight, improve my finances, put a little more pride in my appears (which starts with a haircut on Friday) and work on my self-confidence. I really suck at being confident because I am always afraid of coming off self-centered or braggy and my imposter syndrome will NOT allow that. But, I really want to work on showing more self-love. Doing my makeup more often, getting dressed just cause, getting back into fashion, stepping out of my comfort zone with activities and styles and becoming a more authentic version of myself through self-exploration and being more spontaneous. My boyfriend is trying to teach me the art of spontaneity and I think I will improve little by little. I also want to work my way up in my career while I figure out my long-term goals in terms of making money.

Life is moving fast over the hump of my mid-20s as I rapidly approach 30, but I am super excited about the journey I am on. I think that I have a lot of untapped potential and all I have to do is buckle down and work to discover myself more.

I can’t wait to share what I have learned at 25 and learn even more during my next trip around the sun.

Also, I’m wondering because I would like to find something to do for myself, do you have any birthday or birthweek traditions? I think depending on how the haircut goes on Friday, my new tradition might be changing up my look for a new year of life, even if it is just buying new clothes.

Jess~