25

I'm going to be 25 years old tomorrow.

This birthday feels kind of strange. I don't think that any of my birthdays felt this strange. Not 16, or 18, or 21. This one feels weird. I think it's because right now, my life feels so different that I don't recognize it.

I look in the mirror, and I clearly don't look like a teenager anymore. I don't really look...old. But I don't look super young either. I am only a huge exam and two years away from earning my doctorate. The people I'm close to now are not the same people I was once close to. When I experience joy, pain, drama and trauma these days, Brooke and Nikolai are on my speed dial, people who weren't even in my same time zone three years ago. My best friends are still my best friends, but to some extent I don't feel as connected to them because we don't see each other in our day-to-day lives. Alex is sort of back in my life, but I don't want to be with him, and to be honest it seems like without that desire I am not too inclined to really be his friend either. And I'm kind of back in touch with a few old friends I had previously lost touch with long ago. My relationship with my parents is different. They treat me like their friend and confidante as well as their daughter. And it seems that they're finally divorcing, so that's another change. My time in college seems further and further in the past. It was probably the best time of my life, yet I don't wish to do it all over again, and I don't wish to go back. I don't like being in the desert of my life, and yes, it feels like the desert of my life. Yet there are parts of my life right now that I truly enjoy.

My dreams are no longer my dreams, and what I really want is so much more abstract. I don't want to marry Alex and settle down in Chicago with our 2.3. And as far as I'm concerned, it's not gonna happen. I just want to have devoted companionship from a man I can trust, I want to be a mother, I want to live somewhere beautiful, I want to see the world, I want to make my life count for something. Yeah, 25 feels different. Really different.