I chose the above picture because it's a pretty accurate depiction of where I am in my life right now. Things are very inbetween. I'm still taking selfies in the mirror, fawning over my hair and outfit choice, being photo-bombed by my cat. My laundry is over flowing but things are generally calm. I'm warm and happy in my home with my family. It's somewhere between calm and chaos. Somewhere between child and adult. Not young enough to see that laundry and not think about how I should go do that right dang now. Not old enough to know the true chaos of children, or even a dog. I like my low-maintenance and generally aloof cat thankyouverymuch.
I just spent some time scrolling through this blog, or navel-gazing if we're being honest (which is truly one of my favourite words), but I think a little (or a lot) of self introspection can be a good thing. We've just come to the end of a year (and a decade) and this is a time I really love taking stock of how things have been.
10 years ago Jordan and I had just started dating. We were children. We lived in completely different cities while I went to university and he worked. A decade later we've lived together for over 4 years, we own a cat together, we have changed jobs (and careers) multiple times and been around the world together. It's been a hell of a ride.
I can't help thinking about how easy things used to be back then, at least in retrospect. I saw some high school kids walking today and said how I wished I was a teen again. I remember feeling like it was so hard at the time but that was before bills and full time jobs and therapy sessions and all of the things that come with being an adult who is trying to just exist. I know that being a teen was an emotional roller coaster but weren't things just so much simpler then? You never had to worry about the big existential questions. You were more worried about whether someone liked you or not. Ah, what a time to be alive.
I do love the autonomy of adulthood though. We have the ability to make our own choices. Go where we please. Eat what we please. Stay out as late as we want and take the car as far as we want. It's a give/take situation that it's hard for me not to contemplate (maybe because of my current parking spot firmly on the in-between.) Back in high school there was nothing to think about, that's just the way it was. Now things are so in your hands that it can be a bit scary. Am I making the right decisions? Am I becoming the type of person I want to be? Am I doing the things I want? In general my answer is yes, but it can be a bit exhausting being the C-E-O of such things as your one and only precious life. I don't think people talk about that a lot.
We also don't talk about how wonderful it can be too.
I think we generally just put our heads down and do it.
But it's hard. And it's magical. It's everything in-between.
This next decade I'll be turning 30. It will probably be the decade where things change the most for me in my life and it's funny because we haven't quite decided how different or similar it will be. Will we have kids? Dogs? Trips to far off places? We don't even know yet.
So I guess I'll just sit in the excitement of that, instead of the fear of it because "if it's half as good as the half we've know here's hail! to the rest of the road."
From the desk of:
Taylor Brown
Shameless Navel-Gazer
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