The Shift to My 25th

I am now officially 25 years old, another year ended and so another year shall start. My year 24 was quite difficult issues-wise. It wasn’t even about love, it was about responsibilities, friendships, my family and everything that’s a level higher than falling in love and getting hurt in the process. There were a lot of times when I felt like I was at my happiest, but it sure wasn’t without moments when I felt like I was at my lowest. A lot of tears have been shed, a lot of words have been haphazardly exchanged, a lot feelings were unconsciously manifested and a lot of past issues have resurfaced. My 24th year stuck with the usual formula of what a Eunice Monsod year must be like, difficult but interesting. I was never in the boring side of things. Of course looking back, the most vivid of memories was the day I found out that I was officially graduating. My senior year in the law school was great but knowing that I was on my way out was legen… wait for it… dary! It was the main issue baby! Then there was that obiter dictum that was my short-lived affair to remember. Some things went right, some things went wrong… at times there was love, at times there was the hope of finding love.

So it has come to this, I am in my quarter life, in the words of Dial, “1/4 ka na ng 100!.” That is of course without hope that I’ll live that long but knowing that I am on my way to experiencing the (hopefully) better years of my life make me smile and get teary-eyed. Yes they will be better, because what is life without that possibility of improvement and of achieving new things right? There is nothing like a life that is difficult but well-lived. Yes I have issues, not the high school issues that we usually brush off, real mature issues that are too challenging even to someone who has gone to hell and back and back and back… if I could shield the people I love from feeling helpless, from feeling disappointed and from feeling that they are doing things wrongly, I will. Yet, these are the things that inspire me to reach not for the nearest star but for the farthest but most magnificent of them all.

I cannot say that I have lived my life quite perfectly, but who has? I don’t aim for perfection, I aim for progress. I am in my 25th, with, regrettably, a lot of mishaps unflawlessly resolved. I made a number of bad decisions in my 24th, but I have gotten passed them, maybe not with flying colors but with rejuvenated vigor that only pain can bring out in me.

I am in this battle, maybe handicapped but not disabled and unable. I am in this battle, bruised but not waiting around to be saved. I am in this battle, alone but not lonely… In the words of Richard Fish, We all are alone anyway, it’s just easier to take in a relationship. I don’t care how long it takes, but I will be someone someday. Heck, I already am someone, now. As for that Carrie Bradshaw / Ally McBeal in me, go on girl… Maybe I have already found my Mr. Big, or maybe I have moved on from my Billy, but I am my own Carrie, I am my own Ally, I am Eunice. I am fabulous. :p

Happy Birthday to Me… but why am I celebrating something that happened 25 years ago? Happy living to me! Because my life starts everyday… and it ends when I say so. The operative word is Happy. Happy. Happy. I already am. To be Happier, that’s the plan.