26th Birthday Reflection.

(Birthday reflections is a series on my blog.)

I cannot believe that we are already here! I am writing this on the eve of my twenty sixth birthday. In a couple of hours, I will be off of my parents’ insurance. In a couple of hours, I will officially be in my mid-to-late twenties. I feel as though the age of twenty six does not mean much in itself, but the task of paying for my own health insurance (resulting in a slightly lower paycheck amount every couple of weeks) is plaguing me. Of course, my situation could be much, much worse, and overall, I am choosing to bask in the gratitude that comes with entering another year of life.

This is my fourth birthday that I am spending in Boston. While my grievances with the city still stand, it has brought me a lot of opportunity and joy over the past year. I moved into a new apartment right before my twenty fifth birthday, and I am living here for the next year as well. I appreciate the area in which I live very much; I can walk to two different train branches, a bus stop, my gym, two drugstores, two grocery stores, multiple restaurants, a running route, and my favorite bookstore all within ten minutes. Shortly before my birthday last year, I resigned from my job at the time, so I spent the first few months of twenty five applying to new ones. During this time, I had the pleasure of TAing for a class at the BU School of Public Health and working at Athleta. With Boston prices, Boston rent, and student loans, I am not entirely sure how I stayed afloat on the savings and small paychecks that I received, but I know that I could not have done so without the support of my family. I am forever grateful to have parents and a brother who cheer for me and hold me accountable in every chapter of my life.

I absolutely loved TAing. I love mentoring and I love teaching. I always have, and I know that in another life I would have enjoyed being a teacher. My experience as a TA and other mentoring experiences throughout the past several years have prompted me to contemplate being a professor. My goal is to dip my toe into this by looking for teaching opportunities at community colleges and possibly pursuing a PhD down the line. I would love to be a safe and brave space for students as well as use my research and resources to effect social and policy changes.

My first job was a swim instructor for my swim club. I started teaching children how to swim when I was ten and continued doing so until I graduated high school. My other jobs include writing for my hometown newspaper, internships and full time jobs related to my career, and working at a gym. While I garnered so much knowledge and experience in all of these roles, I had never worked a true retail position until I worked at Athleta. I learned so much about the inner workings of retail and what happens behind the scenes, and I enjoyed my time there. I met cool people and I did a great job greeting and helping customers. I walked and did more physically than I expected, and this role was unlike anything that I had done before. I already knew this, but my time at Athleta only confirmed how so many high level, C-Suite, so called “elite” or “intellectual” individuals would not last a day in retail or any service industry job.

In January of this year, I started working full-time as a Community Health Educator at the Cambridge Health Alliance. I work specifically in the Sexual and Reproductive Health program which lies in the Community Health Department. On any given day, I could develop curriculum and teach sexuality education in classrooms, counsel students on health options from birth control to STIs to relationships, collaborate with other organizations that are focused on substance use or housing, help students and families register for health insurance or any assistance programs, hold youth development workshops, and more. I know that the work that my coworkers and I are doing is potentially life-saving, and I have learned so much from this position. My fellow educators are such interesting and knowledgeable people and I am thankful for my team. Working with youth in this capacity has also reinforced my love of teaching and I cannot wait to see where my intersecting passions take me. I do experience frequent imposter syndrome and question my career as anyone would, but I also remind myself that the grass is always greener. This job, this phase, this chapter of my life is not forever, and I have the privilege and freedom to change my mind.

Right before my birthday last year, I met the most wonderful man. I have never been in a healthier or happier relationship and I have never been treated so well. The confidence that I have in him and our relationship is something that I feared I would never truly feel. My emotions overwhelm me and my heart could not possibly capture all of the adoration that I feel for him. I feel as though we have already experienced so many chapters together and I cannot wait for more. We meet every challenge and disagreement with love and respect. It feels easy. Everyone in my life who has met him as described him as gentle and sweet, and this says so much. When I met him, when I hugged him, when I inhaled him, he felt like home. I can display every part of myself with him and he also pushes me to discover more about myself. I hope that all of my friends experience a partnership like the one that I have with him. I thank the universe every day for placing him in my life. Ben, I love you and I am so in love with you. Thank you for actively loving me.

While I have discovered so much solace in my romantic relationship, I have struggled with my friendships more over the past year. I put so much pressure on being the perfect friend and I invest so much energy into my friendships, but I find myself questioning all of them at the same time. I am constantly asking myself whom I have in my corner and I constantly worry that I have done something to upset someone. So many of my closest friends live in different places and I do not see them often. I worry about the effects that distance can have on a friendship. I have heard less from people whom I considered close over the past year, but when I have asked them about it, they say that nothing is wrong. This questioning that I have of myself has likely stemmed from the fact that I experienced a falling out (? not even sure if I would call it that) with one of my best friends. I considered her so close and we often discussed living next to each other, traveling together, and more. I invested so much care and love into this friendship and I believed that it was worth the fight. I did not receive any closure and I still do not have answers. I remain very confused and the friendship breakup has created a larger hole inside of me than I expected. I feel as though she already had one foot out of the door and I have realized that we cannot make people stay if they’re already set on leaving. Choose people who choose you. I would like to work on keeping the heartache of this friendship out of the ones that I do have.

In exciting news, I completed my second Boston Women’s 10K this past fall and I am training for the Philadelphia Marathon currently! I am absolutely terrified, but, as I always say, if I am anything, I am brave. Training has had a lot of downs with a couple of ups, but I am learning more about myself and my body and the schedule has pushed me into a better routine.
I am unsure about the cause as it could be the location of my apartment or stress or something else, but I have fallen more ill over the past year than I have previously. I have not experienced anything major, but I have had colds more frequently and I experience congestion often. I am focusing more on my health and wellness as a result; I have created a better skin, oral, and hair care routine, developed mental health practices, and centered nutrient rich foods. With twenty six on the horizon, my health is truly in my hands and I owe it to myself to cherish it.

I had an exciting year of travel. In addition to visiting my home state of Minnesota a few times (once to celebrate my younger brother’s college graduation – so proud of you, Neil!), I had a lovely fall trip to the White Mountains in New Hampshire with friends and visited Austin, Texas for the first time for a wedding in March! This summer, I took another friend trip to Rhode Island and I fell in love with the state. We spent a day on Block Island as well, and it was the epitome of a coastal dream. Ben is from Western Massachusetts, so I had the opportunity to visit Amherst and the surrounding towns. This part of the state is so different from the Boston area and I didn’t really expect any of it. I am excited to spend more time there and see how it looks in the fall.
As many might have seen on Instagram, I took a solo trip to Copenhagen, Denmark in August. I had a blast! The ability to travel internationally is one that I do not take for granted and I am obsessed with Cope. The city is so well planned and perfect for solo traveling or traveling in a group. I discuss it more in this podcast episode, so I recommend listening to it for my thoughts on Copenhagen and solo traveling more generally.

The concept and, specifically, the ambiguity of death terrifies me. Death is probably my greatest fear, but I have spent more time coming to terms with mortality over this past year. I read about tragic accidents and hear of people from my past passing, and these situations only grow harder and harder to process. At the same time, I do not ponder death in, necessarily, a bleak or morbid way, but I am pushing myself to accept that it is inevitable. Like any human being, I love security and certainty, but as someone in her mid twenties, I would not really say I have much of either. Even if I happen to feel secure on a personal level, climate anxiety eclipses my mind and the general sorrow that I feel for the world keeps me awake at night. How am I supposed to celebrate my wins or my loved ones or go to work to barely pay rent or really do anything at all when Palestinians are being cleansed? How am I supposed to exist when genocides have been and are taking places across the world? How am I supposed to laugh or smile or “keep going” when diseases run rampant, some part of the world is aflame at any given point, and one community is being exploited to benefit another? I am expected to pay student loans and not question authority when people are being obliterated? I can no longer live in this world without thinking about Palestine in every breath that I take. While many young people are pushed toward nihilism and I sometimes succumb to it, I cannot accept it. We all deserve to discover what our lives mean to us especially when we do not know what comes next. If an afterlife or heaven or reincarnation or whatever one believes does not exist, this life is the only chance that I have to do and feel all that I can. I would rather embrace the state of impermanence in which I find myself than waste my days craving monotony, and I planning on dedicating twenty six to this feat.

To everyone who loves me, cares for me, and supports me: I am here because of you. Thank you. I love you!

books read while twenty five (my faves/must reads are asterisked):
– The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
– An Impossible Return by Caroline Laurent
– Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan*
– Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn*
– Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella
– Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
– Tell Me How This Ends by Jo Levers
– Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
– The Sentence by Louise Erdrich*
– Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
– The Lady from Burma by Allison Montclair
– One by One by Ruth Ware*
– Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González*
– The Winners by Fredrik Backman*
– Brick Lane by Monica Ali
– Trouble the Living by Francesca McDonnell Capossela
– Icebreaker by Hannah Grace
– Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi*
– King of the Armadillos by Wendy Chin-Tanner*
– The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
– Funny Story by Emily Henry
– Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley
– Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
– The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah*
– Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change*
– Naysayer: Poems by Isra Hassan* (my friend!)
– Babel by RF Kuang*
– The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
– The Butterfly House by Katrine Engberg
– White Teeth by Zadie Smith*
– This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune*
– Real Americans by Rachel Khong*
– currently reading: In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

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