Birthday Thoughts and Anxieties
By: Sonya Stephen
Tags: Life, Trust, Adventure, Anxiety

I wrote that in a journal entry back in 2018, about six months before I would move away from New Zealand. I lived there for six years — four and a half of which I spent in college and the other nearly two years were spent working and enjoying post-college life. About halfway through 2018 I made the decision to move back to the United States, mainly to be a bit closer to my family and also because I needed a change. I’m sure a lot of us get that restless feeling a few years after graduating college. It’s a feeling of wanting to get out into the “real world” and really start to take charge of our lives. Some people do this by working towards their dream job, others get married and settle down. Some decide to move to the other side of the world just to “switch things up.” I fell into this last category.

The sentiments expressed in this journal entry reflect the difficult pull between young adulthood and “grown up life.” There comes a time after living with your friends for years that you feel you need to “grow up.” I think this can be a dangerous feeling for some people as it causes anxiety and an intense pressure to “figure it out” (I’m a big fan of quotation marks today, apparently). While my years in New Zealand were some of the best of my life so far, I reject the notion of them being my “Golden Years” as this leads to the assumption that the rest are going to be worse, or not as great. Who decided that years 18–25 are officially the best? Are we meant to just endure the next 60+ years of our lives and hope for the best? In my humble opinion, that is bullsh*t. The past year has taught me so much about myself and I am beginning to form a vision for the rest of my life like I have never been able to before.

Today marks my 27th year around the sun and the quote I included in that journal entry is resonating with me more than it ever has. Especially around big milestones like birthdays, new years, etc., we tend to question where we are at in life and ask ourselves things like, “are we on the path we want to be?” “Should I be doing more?” “What have I really done?” These can be really problematic because it makes you assume you should have done things differently, and in turn begin to have regrets. We can all have, and probably should have, moments we aren’t proud of and wouldn’t repeat. These are called mistakes and are completely human and OKAY. We learn from them, move on and don’t dwell on them…in a perfect world. What that quote from Paulo Coehlo reminds me is this: everything we have done in life has led us to the path on which we are walking. You would not be where you are today without taking the steps you have, even the missteps. I shouldn’t complain or regret my life choices because it got me to where I am today, and for that I am grateful. I will undoubtedly make more mistakes, but I have confidence that I will learn from them and be led on the correct path regardless.

Moving through transitions in life — birthdays, big moves, new relationships, etc. can be scary. This is the first birthday in which I feel anxious about getting older. If you are bothering to read this, I’m sure you’ve had similar feelings at some point, too. I am coming around to them because I know they are not only inevitable, but a shared experience. The human experience. And I am so happy to be living through it.