twenty-five.

There seems to be something about this age.

Twenty-five. This quarter-life time.

People keep telling me.  
When I was that age, I picked up and left. 
I lived wildly.  
At twenty-five, everything changed.  
Your mid-twenties are such a great time for inventing yourself.  
When I was at that point in life, I felt like I could go anywhere, do anything.

There's this constant state of flux surrounding twenty-five. There's not a lot of solidity, there aren't many sure-things, there's not a lot of pure, absolute truth. Everything is changing. You think that adolescence is the time for figuring yourself out, discovering who you are, trying on your morals and values for size, playing around until some semblance of a grown human being begins to form and take shape.

Adolescence has nothing on your twenties.

 Here I am at twenty-five, still figuring myself out, discovering who I am, trying on my morals and values for size, playing around while some semblance of a grown human being forms and takes shape. I've floundered in my years-since-college, retreating back to some safety as I pieced my Self back together and gathered some tools for the road. I've quit my safety job, leaving it behind in a quiet, anti-climactic, stepping-away. I've taken a new job and a leap of faith, finding myself vacillating between Connecticut and Rhode Island, between my childhood bedroom and a spacious loft, between Small Town and Gorgeous City. I don't have anything with me besides a bag of clothes and this computer. Back and forth I go, navigating twenty-five, toeing the lines between young and old, unsure and sure, early twenties and mid twenties (and not quite at late twenties, I don't think).

Perhaps this isn't a twenty-five thing. Perhaps this is just a thing, a thing that happens when you awake from sleep, when you can't go back to the way you were, when your heart opens and all this light pours in and closing it again feels downright painful. Perhaps this can be a thirties thing. Or a forties thing, or a fifties thing, or a sixties thing. Perhaps it's not really a thing at all, but rather an era of time that begins with the awakening, and continues on for years. Perhaps this is just the initial moment of flux, like stepping off a merry-go-round and taking some time to regain your balance and get reacquainted with the solid ground beneath you.

But this is my twenty-five. And there seems to be something about this age. This quarter life time.

It's scary, but it's so damn good.