Growing versus Growing Up (Thoughts after 27 Years around the Sun)

This week I turned 27.  It’s not a big milestone birthday, but in that way it almost feels more weighted.  27 is significant in how seamlessly I now classify as someone in their “late twenties.” There is little novelty and pomp around this birthday, the way it was around 21 or 25. Turning 27, I am not old by any means, but I am no longer “new” to adulthood. I am all grown up.

Except not really.

In a lot of ways, I feel brand new to this adult existence.  

In terms of the place I am at and what I have accomplished so far in life, I am still young. I have friends who are the same age and yet not young in the same way, settled with partners sharing bedrooms, lives, mortgages, and even families. Friends with jobs that have benefits and yearly incomes, who talk about market prices in the city vs. the surrounding areas, and go furniture shopping not out of necessity but by choice.  

It’s not that I feel unaccomplished or wish I was at that point in my life. If anything, I wish that I could remain in the fresh-out-of-school, finding-yourself-stage for a little while longer.  I feel like I’m not done with my days of being untethered. 

And I don’t mean in terms of relationships.  I mean untethered to a single path or direction or vision of my life and way it is being shaped.  

I got off to a late start in my adult life.

I spent the majority of my teens and early twenties with an eating disorder, which caused me to miss out on the kinds of connections and memories that can only come from spontaneous nights out that end drunk ordering pizza to someone’s apartment. And then entering recovery, I essentially surrendered my independence to my family and treatment team in order to get better.

So while all my friends were moving out and starting careers, I was on temporary leave, living in my childhood bedroom, on a strict recovery meal plan enforced and implemented by my parents. While other 24 year olds were updating their CVs and planning travel adventures, I was completing a daily meal log to be reviewed and approved by my therapist and dietician.

After two years of family-based treatment, I was finally healthy enough to step into my independence and grow into the next chapter of my life. So at 25, I moved out of my parents’ house for the first time and landed myself in a house full of roommates. I was doing things for the first time on my own, like shopping and paying for groceries, making rent each month, and washing my sheets. It was a learning curve, and a little unnerving. 

I felt like an 18-year old off to my first year of college.  Instead I was 25, with a new teaching contract with the Toronto school board, a masters degree, and a meal log. 

I am only now at 27 starting to feel like I have found a bit of a rhythm in this adultness of life.  I no longer go into whirls of anxiety over grocery shopping, or the idea of budgeting for household items like paper towel and toilet paper. 

I pay my rent each month automatically a day before its due, and I recently took on my own phone bill too (thanks dad).  I like coming home to my house of four roommates, flopping onto the couch with a glass of wine and lamenting about that guy I liked who turned out to be an asshole. I like having a contract teaching a certain grade at a certain school, with a definite start and end, because I like the idea that there is something different that comes after. 

I still follow DJs and entertainment groups on instagram, because I am still holding out for another summer of music festivals and events, which I only got to taste in my eating disorder, and put on hold in my recovery. 

Now I want to sink my teeth in.  

However, I also feel the pull of solid ground beneath my feet, to find one centre of gravity.  I’ve spent years floating, orbiting erratically,  attached to many things but never something solid enough to keep me flying.

And this groundedness will NOT come from chasing highs at music festivals, a new fitness goal, or a living arrangement. 

This groundedness will be found when I surrender to the process of accepting myself as I am, where I am, and where I am going. 

I am 27. I am no lo longer a little girl, an angsty teen or a university student still “figuring it out.”  I am a woman, strong and independent, who has been through enough of life to know what is worth pursuing and what to let go of in that greater pursuit.  

I don’t need to force myself into a mold, or meet a certain deadline.

I don’t need to manipulate my body to look a certain way. Equating beauty to worth is unsustainable happiness.  For even if I managed to get my body close to the standard I may have in my head, it will only be a short matter of time before gravity and the the sun take their toll and kick off the natural aging process that our society demonizes.  And so, at 27, I am grateful for the health and youth of my body as it is right now. 

I will live this year and the ones going forward without restricting myself in any way. 

I am shifting the narrative-- rather than making my body my masterpiece, I will focus on making my life my masterpiece instead.  My body is simply the instrument that will get me there. 

A few years ago, I   had no vision or understanding of my life beyond the moment I was in.  Each day felt like a mountain I needed to scale, and it felt impossible to picture anything realistic beyond that.  But now, the path I am travelling is infinitely less steep.  I can see a little further ahead of me, and I can start to map it out a little. 

I don’t need to pin down the exact route, or even specific destination, but I can at least choose a direction, and commit to the journey to get there.  

I do not have any big concrete goals for this year, especially with all the external uncertainty at present (thanks covid!). 

I am not expecting a permanent teaching job to come within my grasp, I am not planning some extravagant travel adventure, or even changing my relationship status. 

I am not opposed to any of these things happening this year, but if they don’t, I will NOT feel like I’ve failed in any way.  

Rather than make goals for the year, I am shifting my focus to the way I live every day.  If I can go to bed every night feeling like I did the best I could to make the most of each moment that day, I’ll be making this year a smashing success.  It’s the little steps, NOT the big leaps, to which I’m devoting my attention.  

Ultimately,  my goal for 27 is to  make every day count.

I’m living for the journey, relishing the good parts of everyday, not postponing celebration for some elusive destination.