twenty-two

as a january baby, the holidays always signify just a little bit more to me. while the rest of the world celebrates the birth of baby jesus and toasts to the new year, I serve myself a slice of strawberry cake and knock back my own champagne as consolation for surviving another 365 days.

kidding. well, sort of. but it's not just the new year, it's my new year; a chance to be older and wiser and improve upon past mistakes and turn into the kickass superwoman I intuitively feel I can be, if I ever take the time to actually get my shit together. which I try, every year, but the sheer thought of sifting through the black holes and storm clouds in my psyche is exhausting. It's easier said than done. so I've been blissfully avoiding it... for about five years.

but this new year feels extra special. I have that heart-swelling-in-my-throat feeling as I get ready to seal shut the box of twenty-two and shove it in the back of my closet. 

I credit myself being a capricorn, a myers-briggs unicorn, or just a girl who feels too many feelings. I'm an overthinking underachiever. I've been told that I'm terrified of my own greatness, but the longer I live in fear, the less great I believe myself to be.

this year the fear certainly won. too many days of this year were spent talking myself down from the edge of a panic attack. fearing failure. fearing to admit failure. being too afraid to ask for help.

twenty-two was just old enough for me to pretend I knew what I was doing, but in a way completely different than when I acted out as a smartass teenager. I actually went out on a limb, and I fell, gracelessly, into a pit of despair. I have a job and make enough money to actually support myself, which is weird. I of course continue to spend large chunks of my paychecks on extravagant non-necessities, but I was able to carve out a little space in a luxury shoebox apartment with my boyfriend. We paid bills, ate dinner together on our tiny but adorable coffee table and drank sparkling water out of wine glasses. 

I effortlessly made friends at work. I loved my job. new people wanted to get to know me. people thought I was smart and funny, because damnit, I am smart and funny. but slowly, the fear crept in.

playing house slowly became less fun when the growing piles of dishes in the sink corresponded with the number of nights I cried myself to sleep. in the places that I used to push myself to excel, I cowardly admitted defeat. I gave up.

twenty-two was the year when things came full circle. it's the yin and yang of life, or so I would have told myself that when I used to read books on Taoism and eastern ideologies, around the time I acquired the large lotus-flower-hindu-prayer tramp stamp spanning the lower quarter of my back. you can only run from things so long before they catch up to you.

twenty-two is the year when my meticulously calculated life became sloppy and spontaneous. I literally felt like everything I knew was being ripped away from me. the longer the change went on, the harder it was for me to grasp onto what I knew. I became complacent. Lazy. I tried frantically to regain my sense of self by emulating others. I would scroll, for hours, through the instagrams of fitness models and berate myself for letting myself go. I was weak and impulsive, and my strong backbone and cultivated discipline became as flimsy as a feather.

who am I? I've become what I was afraid of. worse, I've become who I used to be. the girl I ran away from, who I told myself I would never be again. It stings the same way. the most painful part is that I feel OK; 

I'm optimistic for the new year. twenty-two was a lesson that I'm ready to learn from.