Oh, darlin’, don’t you ever grow up

It’s entirely true when they say there is a Taylor Swift song for all emotional ups and downs. “Never grow up” has made me sob ever since Ripley was born, but the connection here is much more literal. DON’T GROW UP!!!

Two weeks ago I turned 25

I’ve always slightly been afraid of turning 25. I mean, looking towards your future as a 14-year-old, being 25 seem

s light-years away. But it is not, and it wasn’t. Time moves really fucking fast.

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I always feared 25 because I thought that it meant I needed to have my life put together. To me, 25 was OLD!! I didn’t want to have children before turning 28; that was always something I brought up in “my plan.” I would be done or finishing law school around my 25th birthday. I have maybe married, maybe not. As long as I was out of the DMV and accomplishing this, that, and the other. HAHA, how pathetic was I!!! Life doesn’t work like that! You CAN NOT successfully plan out your life. Sure, have

goals, crave reaching milestones, dream about your ideal, ~rich~ life where you live in pure peace and joy. But that is just getting you by each day, keeping you alive and motivated. It’s not a strict plan. You cant successfully have a strict schedule for yourself.

However,

what I have learned is that while I was young, I was daydreaming {or day nightmare??} about all these things I needed to accomplish and be doing by the time I reached the old assage of 25, and NOT LIVING LIFE! I wasted my youth. How come I never fully embraced being a teen, young and dumb and relatively carefree? I added so much stress on myself for no good reason. Why? Because God had other plans. in one fellow swoop of a nurse saying, “oh no honey, you’re 24 weeks along, that’s why the legs are so long!” my entire plan went up in flames.

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Don’t grow up too fast…

Now when I sit at home amidst a pandemic engulfing the world, I crave the days of my youth—feeling anger towards myself for worrying about things that could have been put off a few years. Sure, the lessons were one in a million, and I am a better person for much of what I went through from 10 to 21. Still, no lesson can replace your youth.

In the days before my birthday, I feared 25, not because of being halfway to 30 or a year away from shitty health insurance, but because I wanted time to stop so I could bask in my youth. Spend days frolicking around with Ripley, watching him experience the world and everything it has to offer. I am lucky for that. My next 25 years are devoted to ensuring Ripley never loses his childhood wonder and curiosity. Society wants us to grow up so fast, but there is nothing adulthood can give us that replaces seeing the world through the eyes of a toddler.

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Sorry for how jumpy this seems; it’s fresh from my soul. For the past week, I had been mildly depressed over the realization that it took me 21/22 years to see the beauty of birds flapping around, leaves blowing, cars driving, dogs barking, and everything in between. As long as you recognize the simple pleasures of every day, your inner child will live on with you.

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All my love –

xoxo, T ☺︎

CHECK OUT MY RECENT & RELATED POSTS BELOW:

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✦ CLICK HERE TO READ⌇ from change to growth – cheers to 24 – my observations from turning 24 last year!

✴︎ CLICK HERE TO READ⌇ IT’S COOL TO CARE

✦ CLICK HERE TO READ⌇TIME FOR A REFRESH

✴︎ I ALSO RECENTLY STARTED AN EVENT PLANNING BUSINESS!! STALK IT HERE: ELEVEN 11 ATELIER