Twenty Four

Yes, it's my yearly birthday update! Except I made a bit of an error and wrote "23" instead of "24". I guess it's true what they say - your memory becomes weaker as you grow older! Eekh.


If I were to pick the best year in my 20's - I'd definitely pick the year I turned 21. It was a pretty interesting year, but I won't bore you with all of that again, seeing as I've spoken about this before. However, if I were to pick a year that I was most excited and most looking forward to - I'd have to say, it was this year. 


23 was pretty crap. Let's be honest, whatever could go wrong - went wrong, terribly. It's such a strange age, it's neither here nor there - it's just in the middle, a place no one cares about. It's such a difficult age as well, because you're realising that although you had a good grasp on the "real world" it gets much filthier, much more scarier and that much more fascinating than you ever thought. I always felt like I had a good understanding of the world around me, and I did for the most part. What I didn't know was how much your life changes once you are done with education. How different life gets once you start working full time, and what that means for your social life, your family life, your own time.. It all changes so much. And although all these changes are all positive ones, it makes you grow and understand so many things from different angles, it really makes you ask difficult questions to yourself. The ones that were predominant with me over the last year were - "what am I doing, do I want to study more, do I want to work full time, where are all my friends, where am I, why has everyone become so aloof, why are my priorities so different and most of all.. Where do I fit in?" I've heard it a lot from friends and family who graduated prior to when I did, and their advice was to be aware of "that" year. Despite their advice, people go through changes in all sorts of paces, so I thought no different.. But it hit me. That very crazy, haphazardly placed year hit me.. And I was so happy and relieved when it came to an end a couple of weeks ago. 


In Psychology there were a few theories that we learnt about - in life transition and life stages. I remember that the 20's were marked as one of the bigger transitional periods, in terms of making big decisions with education, occupation, love and other great things. So really, it's an early-life crisis, similar to the infamous mid-life crisis.. Except you're too underpaid to buy a posh car. Plus I don't have a license. And I don't want a posh car. I do that with phones. I've changed my mobile about 4 times in the year I was 23.. That shows great instability (although at least now I know which phone manufacturers to stay away from!).

I never really thought age meant anything. I mean they're just numbers put together, that define how many years you've been on the planet. And if anything, it's quite depressing, especially as the older you get, you have nothing to show for your time on the planet apart from a few failed relationships, and perhaps a great career or something.. But nothing substantial. I don't want to be that type of statistic. I want to grow older, add different variations of numbers to my age, and go through them with grace, dignity and so much experience. Experiences of all sorts - of love, of challenges, laughter, hopes and excitement. See, there's a lot to our existence, and we just need to make it count. I think that's why all these transitional periods in our lives are so hard - its because we can't put our finger on what we really want to do, who we really want to be, and where we really want to be.. Instead of spending time in all those thoughts, and wasting a year (literally!), it's better to just take things as they are, where they are, and in whatever form - and deal with it, make it your own. It's easy to fall in to what theories have already planned for us - that we need to have a breakdown at certain times in our lives, because we feel that we're not achieving enough or whatever it is - but really, it's really not that devastating. 


My main aim for this year is to do as many awesome things as I can. First stop - a few weeks in California in the nice hot summery month of June. Following that, FINALLY getting my driving license.. And following that, who knows, perhaps falling in love on a train journey with a Ryan Gosling look a like (I'm giggling already).. It's all very exciting!


Here's to me - and my most eventful year yet.

Melody

As you must know by now, I go through moods and phases with music. For a very long time, I hadn't updated my iPod with any new music or even bothered looking for new music otherwise. 

Over the last few weeks at work, I've started to listen to a lot more music whilst completing some of the more repetitive yet important databases and so forth. It actually helps drown out all the very annoying conversations around me at times - with people constantly asking if you want tea, or something to eat or drink, it can really throw you off your concentration. I find it better working with music now than I did when I was at uni. In fact, at uni, I used to play music to procrastinate and do all sorts of other things. 

Obviously working is different than studying, seeing as you don't get paid to study and you do for working.. Hmm. So anyway, I've been discovering a lot more music in the recent past, and so much of it is so mellow, and so extremely captivating.

Here is my latest obsession.. Listen to it.