twenty-seven and thankful and it's a long entry because i've been meaning to write this for a while now

The first three weeks of my life as a 27 year old have been pretty stellar to say the least. I think the thing this birthday signified the most for me was Becoming an Actual Adult.

...whatever the fuck that means, right?

But seriously, my twenties have been mostly a crap shoot until now. I've certainly had some really great years so far, where I made lots of progress and created lots of positive things for myself (losing 100 pounds would probably fall into that category, as would returning to college to finish my degree, and rediscovering My Life Among the Living after that pesky homeless/jobless/hopeless spell I saw around 21), but I have definitely had an equal if not greater amount of very difficult times, over all, during these 7 years of twentydom. Getting fired this past year was in fact a mere blip on the radar compared to some of the other struggles. And oh what struggles there were. Losing jobs, avoiding jobs, screwing up at jobs, having major surgery - twice, breaking bones, crashing cars, fucking with my credit, fucking with my credit debt, let's fuck some more with my credit, alienating friends, alienating my mother, doing plenty of drugs, being generally irresponsible, failing classes, lying, stealing, generally sucking, being homeless, punching a boyfriend in the face, doing more drugs - the list goes on - you get the point. And oddly, a lot of it happened in a one and a half year span, but some of it dragged on a lot longer.

In fact, I'm about to pay off a cell phone bill that has been in collections since 1999. I was 19 then. So these issues evidently bleed back into the late teens as well.

The point is, it's been a tough road. Or as my therapist once said, "You've always had a difficult time." Yes. Well. I certainly have, haven't I.

And of course I'm of the school that says I created those difficult times for myself. Thank god I at least had that insight during all of it. Nothing is more ugly to me than the screw-up who thinks the world is screwing her. I always knew it was my own choice to be making the mess and my own choice to climb out of it. It was just the climbing out part that I seemed to find next to impossible. And who wouldn't.

My close friends know the whole "story". (As those years have gotten further away, the story has become less definitive of who I am and more of a series of anecdotes, but it all felt anything but anecdotal as it was happening.) I was all about making a big ol' mess. And I finally had the messiest mess of shit happen the summer before I turned 22 that knocked me, hard, into fixing things. But it takes a lot longer to fix shit than it takes to break it. And I'm still fixing. I fixed a LOT in those first few years, making major strides all the time. But I have never fully felt that I got to zero and kept moving upward, if that makes sense. I never fully felt that I completely repaid my debts - financial, spiritual, emotional, and otherwise - AND was able to actually move beyond them into something totally new and unrelated to being Someone With A Story. Until now. I'm mended. And I've moved on. It's really a miracle. It's taken a long time.

Twenty-six was a bittersweet year. I had a lot of great stuff going for me when I turned 26, and I'd already put so much of my Mess behind me, but there were still some habits and weaknesses and misguided values that were sneaking in and making it hard for me to live fully. I know now that stuff will always be there to challenge me and I have to make better choices for myself every day, but I had myself tricked for a while into thinking that those challenges weren't there at all. Then I got fired from my cushy job and endured a momentary tail spin that felt a little too close to the horrible feelings of Homeless '02. That's just what our bodies do with tough times, associate them to other tough times, even if they aren't terribly similar. So it felt scary to have that instability again. And it shook me. So that was a hard part of twenty-six.

I saw lots of good parts of twenty-six too though. HST, improv, friends, health, etc. And I fell in luv. Eeeew! Gross! Aaack! Barf! And that shook me too, except in a good way and with my pants off. ZING!

I started to piece things together for myself (again) after getting fired and found some places that had been needing some more attention than I'd been willing to give to them. My horoscope recently said something like "You've gotten so used to dithering around that you don't even know you're doing it." Yup.

And I'm just at this point now - this point where I'm not gonna except anything less from myself than what I know I'm capable of giving to myself. I want to be healthy in body and mind. I want to use eye cream on my eyes because I'm not gonna be young forever. (Shut up, Kevin.) I want to smoke less pot (And oh my god I actually am for the first time in 7 entire years I cannot believe it yes yes yes yes yes!!!!) because who the fuck needs the extra hurdle, life is hard enough without putting roadblocks in your own way. I want to exercise as often as possible because it will make me healthy when I'm 80, not because it will make me skinny. I want to meditate and have a healthy awareness of my spirtual state because it's important to me to get the most of out of this Consciousness thang we humans got goin' on. I want to enjoy my friends and laugh with them and dust my bedroom more often and buy myself new sweaters because it makes me feel happy to have clothes I like. I want to write thank you notes to people and let the irritating shit roll off my back and wear jewelry because I like how it feels and hang out with my cat and love my boyfriend and practice patience with him and support him in everything he does because he deserves to be supported. I want to take vitamins and balance my check book and have good credit (who AM I?!) and accrue frequent flyer miles because that sounds like fun. I want to stop tempting fate into trying to convince me over and over again how precious my life is in the form of crashing my car, breaking my foot, losing my salary, or owing somebody a shit ton of money. I want to honor my life as a way of thanking the Universe for all the cool things I've been able to do so far, all the awesome stuff I've gotten to see, all the amazing opportunities and second chances and first tries I've been given, all the seriously fantastic people I know, the wonderful family I have, and the general wellness I've been given.

I'm so grateful for that stuff. I'm so so eternally grateful for it. But most of all I'm grateful that I've taken so many stupid chances (and, granted, memorable risks) with that stuff and have still ended up here, 27, truly appreciating the whole game.

Plus I have new cat pants.