A year of maturing

Somehow, I’m turning 27 next Wednesday.

Which is weird. Mentally I’m 12, I look like I’m 18 and if you were to ask me how old I am I’d still probably say 24 because I still haven’t accepted the fact I’m entering my late 20s. Yet, somehow, I’m a normal, functioning adult who does things like pays his taxes on time, has a steady job and contributes to society.

Like I said, I’m entering my late 20s, which makes me feel old. I remember being young and someone told me they were 27. I thought that was so old. Like, ancient. Yet here I am.

So why am I writing this column? Well, I guess it’s to reflect back on my year.

One thing I like about my birthday is that it comes at the end of the year and falls squarely in the middle of the holiday season. So, for my birthday, I always like to look back at the year that was. And what a year that was.

Last year (25 if you struggle with math like me), I would say, was the best year of my life. A lot of big things happened that year, and it was probably the year that I enjoyed the most because it was the year where I crossed off a lot of important life goals — getting into grad school, solidifying important relationships, things like this.

This year? The year where I was 26? I would say this was the most important year in my life.

This was the year where I was tested. Life threw a lot of curveballs this year, and I really needed to mature to be able to knock them out of the park. And I’d like to think that’s what I did.

I started grad school in January. It’s been a couple of years since I was in school, and it took me a while to get back into the swing of things. I forgot how to write academically. Trust me when I tell you that writing for the paper is a lot different from writing an academic paper.

But I worked hard. In fact, I’ve never worked so hard in school in my life. Sure, I worked hard when I was in high school to ensure I got into my top college, but when I got to college my academics slipped. I don’t want to say that I didn’t try, but I didn’t think I’d go to grad school, so I didn’t prioritize my classes. Sure, I did well enough to get into grad school, but I know, looking back at my college experience, that I could have done a lot better.

Now, though, that I’m a “mature” adult in grad school, things are different. I’m putting my head down and working my you-know-what off. I spend many hours at home, sitting on my computer reading for class and writing papers. I haven’t stopped school since January, even taking classes during the summer.

My support system has been ensuring I haven’t been slacking off, reminding me of deadlines and encouraging me to keep going when I want to stop. And hard work pays off. I’m really not one to brag, but as of this writing (I still have one more course this semester before my first extended break from school since 2019), I have a 4.0. I’m really proud of this. This just proves that hard work and determination pays off.

I moved into a new house. Sure, this move wasn’t the cross-country move that I did two years ago, but it was still challenging. I hate moving. I really do. But, sometimes, moving is necessary, and as I wrote last week this house is our own and perfect.

Throwing a wrinkle into the move was the fact that we were moving at the beginning of the pandemic, when people were a lot more cautious about COVID-19. We were afraid that our move wouldn’t happen. But, thanks to our friends and, most importantly, our family, we were able to move into our own house, accomplishing a life goal I didn’t think was possible until I was older.

And speaking of the ongoing global pandemic, let’s focus on that for a second and how that impacted my maturity this year. You see, when the pandemic first hit, I was really nervous. As I’ve written before, I’m a pretty anxious person, and the unknown surrounding the pandemic really, quite honestly, made me scared. But if there’s one good thing this pandemic has done is that it has helped me confront my fears and anxiety.

I’ve always been a bit of a germaphobe. I hate being sick, so I’ve always been really cautious about illness, and illness and being sick has always made me anxious. But the pandemic forced me to confront that. I learned to deal with my nervousness when it comes to getting sick, and that was something that required a lot of maturity.

And I’m still cautious. I wear my mask whenever I’m out, and I’m more likely to go for the hand sanitizer on my way out of a store. But I don’t let the fear and the unknown of the pandemic dictate my life. I’m still going to carry on the way I’ve done before, albeit with some caution that gives me the ability to confront my fears and carry on. Hey, I’m not perfect. But the fact that I’m able to carry on, I’d say, is a big step in the right direction for me.

All of these things required maturing in some way, shape or form. While 26 hasn’t been the most enjoyable year of my life, I have to say this was the most important year of my life.