Quarter

A few hours ago, I completed my twenty-fifth cycle of the Sun. A quarter of a century since I entered the world. Halfway to fifty. Pretty soon I’ll be ‘late twenties’. How does time go by so fast?

Twenty-five feels like a milestone. Perhaps not as remarkable as 18 or 21, but worth a brief pause to reflect nonetheless. I feel that this is probably the step at which I stop being ‘young’. Not that I’m feeling ‘old’ just yet, although the next milestone is the big 3-0, which feels scarily close. Five years left before I need to start adulting for real.

As a child, and I suppose a teenager, I never really understood what my parents meant when they said time goes much faster when you’re old. Time is just time right? Surely it goes the same speed for everyone (time dilation and the theory of relativity notwithstanding). But I’m starting to see what they mean.

I still consider this blog to be a new venture, but I was twenty-three when I started it, and this blog post is about to tick me over 50,000 words written. Twenty-three though, is early twenties. I’m now hurtling towards my late twenties, much faster than I’d like. Am I following the right path? I hope so, but time feels like it’s going too fast to stop and figure that out. Sort of like Adam Sandler’s character in Click, sometimes it really does feel like I’m passing through on auto-pilot. I’m probably not, when I stop and think about what I’ve done and what I’ve achieved, but it also feels like just a couple months ago I was still at University and working part-time at McDonald’s (it was actually 32 months ago, if you were wondering).

When I turned 20, five whole years ago back in 2012, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t have any “empty years”. I told myself that for every year from then on, I wanted at least one major life event or experience to look back on: In 2012, aged 20, I worked at the London Olympics, and moved to Edinburgh for the first time. In 2013, aged 21, I successfully completed my Industrial Placement and was offered a permanent role at CGI in Scotland post-graduation. In 2014, aged 22, I graduated University, and left home for the last time and moved permanently to Scotland. In 2015, aged 23, I bought my first flat in Edinburgh. In 2016, aged 24, I adopted Charlie. In 2017, aged 25… who knows? I do have some plans in the pipeline and some decisions to make, but for today at least I’m just going to focus on dealing with the 1/3rd life crisis that comes with turning twenty-five.