It's a weird thing when the image of what younger you thought your life would be and your life actually line up. Teenage me though adult me would be a confident, single, career oriented woman, hopefully living in New York. Adult me went through several incarnations and ideas of what life was going to be, none of which fit quite right before finally, becoming that woman teenage me always hoped I'd be.
Of course teenage me also hoped we'd be stage acting or somehow working in something related to international relations and that Corina and Lara would be nearby always, but though the specifics change, the essence remains the same.
Sometimes I spend so much time focusing on the things I still want to improve, I forget how much I've accomplished. The ways in which I've changed to become that person that is somewhere between the person I think I am on my worst days and that person I'd ideally be. That person, that is the most realistic version of myself.
I was a strange combination of a bookish and athletic child. Soccer, gymnastics, volleyball, tap dance... and at recess I'd walk to the cafeteria while unable to put my book down. I grew into teenagerhood an odd combination of somebody that was comfortable speaking in front of large organized groups but a little lost socializing at parties or when meeting new people. Shy, but opinionated, which mostly just makes people think you're a bitch, it turns out. My young adulthood wasn't much different. I used to wish I could be the kind of person that didn't care about everything, the kind of person that could be ridiculous and lose control. The kind of person that just met people and presented themselves in a way that said "hi, here I am, take it or leave it, but either way, I'm probably going to get drunk and have a dance party and I think it'd be pretty fun if you'd join in".
At some point in the last few years, I became that person and it especially solidified in the last year of being in a new city and meeting new people. I am not always a silly drunken party girl that will dance at the drop of a hat (sometimes I'm a completely sober party girl that will dance at the drop of a hat, ask Sara) but at some point I stopped being the person that hid quietly in the corner kind of wishing they had a book. I've had a life, and I have things to say and I want to meet other people that do too and that live on the crossroads of taking life far too seriously and "wooooo!" which it seems, is almost everyone in New York, so at least I'm in the right place.
I've been told I'm on the better side of my 20s now, where everything stops being so crisis-y and starts to solidify and fall in place. Where you stop giving a fuck about the person you're supposed to be and just start being the person you want to be. I think I'm starting to believe it. I think I'm starting to get it, whatever it is. I think stability was a good word choice for this year. And I think I like this person I've become, weird dichotomy of super responsible/super serious and party girl and all.
