the older i get, and the more slowly i unfurl and unfold toward some abstract picture of "success," the more grateful i am that it's happening now, when i am thirty-one years old.
didn't graduate from college until i was 26 years old.
didn't date anyone until i was 30 years old.
but you know what? if i had gone to college right after high school, who knows WHAT would have happened.
my life from 17-24 was ROUGH. i was a confused and extremely emotional person. people used to meet me at parties and tell me i should read prozac nation. i used to call friends from high school late at night and beg them for some idea, any idea, of how i could escape my inner turmoil. should i move to san francisco? should i go back to college? how? I'M TRAPPED was all I could think during that time.
i have taken a long and circuitous path to arrive at a place usually reserved for 22-24 year olds: a place where i have an entry level job that i quite enjoy, a great boyfriend who will, in all likelihood, be the last man i date.
but you know what's missing? things like drinking and drugs and self-loathing. thankfully, i can actually ENJOY things when i get them now. i can appreciate my progress through life. because time and trials have worn smooth grooves in me, when things are "poured out" in my life, they actually sit there for awhile instead of splashing straight off onto the floor.
lots of people would consider me a late bloomer. let them.
but i would not trade my path, for fear that i would become a person who takes blessings for granted.
