I have been 25 for 3 days now and it is definitely living up to my low
expectations. Friday night, the eve of my birthday, was great! I went to a special dinner with my sister and a good friend of ours and had a great time laughing and eating fondue! Our waiter looked like Justin Long and we did our best to make him feel uncomfortable every time he walked over due to our inability to control the laughter. Tears were running down our faces and sticking to glasses! That was a great way to spend my last night as a 24 year old.
Saturday I impulsively decided to do a 5k walk with my friend. The night before I had bought new shoes and was starting to get pumped to get outside and be active. Then at 4 a.m. I was pulled out of a dead sleep by a feeling comparable with someone sawing off my left leg. I had the worst charlie horse of my entire life. So when it was time to get up 3 hours later I was not well rested and still very sore. But my stubborn nature forced me out into the cold to prove something to myself. I limped and complained both silently and vocally for the first mile and a half. Then about the 2 mile marker I had forgotten the pain in my left leg (sometimes being replaced by pain in my right ankle) and was enjoying the walk through downtown Holly. When we crossed the finish line I was relieved to sit down and take more meds, but happy that I finished! (I rarely take meds for anything, but on my birthday I didn't want to try to work through the pain like I usually would.)
I went home, took a hot shower, and sat in bed watching a movie for an hour. When I got up to get ready for lunch with some friends, my feet hit the floor and then was shortly followed by the rest of me hitting the floor as my sore legs reminded me of their plight. Luckily my bed caught me and I was able to recover again before my second attempt. Lunch was a great time. I share a birthday with a new friend, so I went to her birthday celebration and we enjoyed it together.
For dinner I was planning to go to On the Border with some friends, not looking forward to their birthday tradition of standing on my chair and dancing in front of the entire restaurant with corona salt and pepper shaker bottles in hand. It seems like a lot of torture for a tiny bowl of ice cream! A few friends from very different corners of my life showed up and I enjoyed myself. I had a new friend from work, a roommate from college, a friend I met while I was in high school, a best friend I've known forever and a friend who I don't see very often from my time working at the church. It was fun to watch so many aspects of my life collide and interact! It was definitely awkward at times, but I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I obliged to dance for ice cream, but refused to stand on my chair. I'm not very shy, but I don't like to be the center of attention!
On Sunday I went to church and then to my parents, where I had to frost my own cake. It seems like as you get older, things are a lot less magical. You lose Santa, the Tooth fairy, birthday surprises and so much more that are replaced by doctor bills, and license renewal fees, and insurance, and frosting your own birthday cake. (a couple years ago I got so fed up with waiting for my family birthday celebration that I ended up making my own cake while home alone in mid-January. Well over a month after my actual birthday! It sucks getting older.) We decorated mom and dad's Christmas tree, and ordered pizza. My parents also try to be really nice and include people in everything, which is fine except on my birthday without asking me about it. So I was a bit annoyed. The pizza was wrong, so the 1 topping that I said I wanted was missing, and I got more annoyed. And then, because I'm an overly emotional girl at times, and because I am not loving being 25 and for so many other reasons, I cried at my birthday celebration. Maybe Lesley Gore could relate when she sang "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to."
Then my mom and I had a heart to heart. I expressed that this is not exactly where I would have guessed I would be at 25. Her words of wisdom to me were to join a bowling league, take a photography class or maybe a line dance class... Usually her advice is really insightful and hits home, but I have to admit that advice left me more confused than before.
I'm going to try to be happier about my age and less cynical, but it's not looking likely today! I had very low expectations for this mile marker, and I have to say, so far it is pretty much what I expected.
