My Quarter-Life Crisis

I’m 25 now, so naturally, I’m having a quarter-life crisis.

Getting older is not something that ever scared or intimidated me. Honestly, I never thought of it much. I love my birthday and always saw it as an opportunity to celebrate. The concept that I was actually getting older just didn’t occur to me.

That is, until this year when I turned 25.

Twenty-five is a quarter of a century. I’ve been on this earth for 25 years. I’ve begun to ask myself questions that didn’t cross my mind before: what have I done in 25 years? Am I behind? Am I ahead? Most importantly, what will the next 25 years of my life — si Dios quiere, as my grandmother used to say — look like? I have my whole life ahead of me, and it’s so exciting. I have my whole life ahead of me, and it’s so terrifying.

Looking back on the version of myself I was last year, it’s hard to recognize myself. I spent a lot of 24 lost, confused, and unsure of who I was. I was on autopilot, going through the motions but not always truly present.

In some ways, maybe some of it had to do with my father’s cancer diagnosis. In other ways, I think I lost sight of myself by putting too much into another person. I consumed myself with work on weekdays and going out all weekend. Those who were closest to me — my mother and brothers — told me I was unrecognizable. As upset as I got at them for saying it, looking back, they were right. (They often are, but I will rarely ever admit that.)

But, 2024 and turning 25 have been a huge change for me, one that I have made a conscious effort to make. I have shifted my mindset on a lot of things, and have been intentional about making sure I am happy with the life I’m living.

Admittedly, my life has felt like a whole new ball game — let it be known that I just made a baseball reference and baseball is my least favorite sport — but it’s all internal. None of the outside factors or circumstances of my life have changed that significantly, but how I view and approach them has.

It’s hard to put into words exactly how I’m feeling now versus how I felt last year. And, it’s hard to explain it without sounding a bit whiney about last year, and sounding too “toxic positivity” about this year. No one wants to hear “just change your mindset” when they’re going through a hard time. I didn’t. It wasn’t until I was actually ready to and made the choice to do so that it made the difference for me.

So, the next 25 years of my life… what will they look like?

Obviously I have no f*cking idea. I’m not a fortune teller nor can I travel into the future to find out. Not knowing, as I said earlier, is both terrifying and exciting.

There are some things I can predict, some constants I can count on staying the same. The biggest being the people in my life. Those who mean the most to me — my parents, brothers, friends — are stuck with me forever.

I’ll likely still be figuring out who I am when I’m 50, just as I’m figuring out who I am at 25. I’ll always be changing, growing, and evolving as a person.