Well, almost... not exactly. To be precise, twenty nine days from today I'll spend my last day as a twenty-something year old.
To be perfectly candid, I have been dreading this time of my life since I was barely twenty. For some obscure reason, which I can't remember, this age seemed to me like some kind of deadline, a doomsday prophecy of sorts. I spent my twenties fearing my thirties so much that I did not pay attention to what was going on. In the last ten years, I've made more mistakes than I care to count, I've met thousands of people, fell in love with some, disliked others, hated a few. I've had many jobs, I've made 180 degrees turns in profession and then 180 again landing me... you guessed it: exactly where I started.
I've travelled to new places, I've gone back to my home country, I have figured out exactly why I am the person I am. I've given into temptations and I have also stood my ground. I've tried many things and discarded a few from my life. Some I miss, some I never did.
And though I know talking about age is a cliché.
I used to believe that the people who rock your world are supposed to stay in it forever; then I understood that some come in, make themselves important and then break you apart, those are the ones who actually force you to become who you are meant to be.
I finally found out what my thirties were a deadline for: figuring out the person that I am, the person I want to be. Even more so, with all these lessons comes a deep sense of freedom, the ultimate liberation: living a life to fulfill your own expectations, rather than other people's. Freedom, a highly underrated word.
I'm not there yet, it is a process. Someone that I respect very much once told me that you spend the first four decades of your life meeting the person who you are, building it, forging it; you enjoy it for a couple of decades more and then start saying good-bye to it. But for now, I'm me someone I get to know better every day.
I've spent three decades on this planet, I've lived in two different countries and I've learned three languages. I am hoping to speak four before my fourth decade! I'm looking forward to it!!
