Reflections

In one week I get another year older and I look back at this past year and one year ago at this moment I was doing the same thing. I used to love birthdays until I hit about 25. 25 was a tough one, that I didn't handle it very well. I just thought, at that point, my life would be very different. When I turned 25, I had just started a new job that had nothing to do with my degree and making maybe $10 an hour in a bad economy, but thankfully I was working. I was still seeking and seeking "real" jobs, and felt I had missed something. Here I was at 25 without being in a steady relationship (and still to this day have some fear of them), not in the best job, but yet I was surrounded by great friends whom had seen me through a very tumultuous year.

Fast forward and here I am a week til my 28th birthday and I am still in some rut. I have a job with a company that is more "real". I never thought I would be with Verizon this long, but I have been. I don't hate my job by any means. I have some regrets in how I have gone forward (or rather backwards in recent months) with my career. The break from sales has been nice to figure what I want to do. But nonetheless, at a week til 28 I am definitely not where I thought I would be. I thought I would be married, with possibly kids, hopefully owning a home. It is amazing how we have plans for our lives and they don't always pan out that way. I am blessed to live the "dream" of being in NYC and living here. I know it is not forever, and I am learning to enjoy the moments I am in... because life is moving at an ever fast pace, and I only get today once. My personality, by default, is planner. It is not because I desire to be "boring" or not spontaneous, but I think rather it is my need to still be in control, and maybe that is an area God is working on in my life. I have had moments in life where I didn't think things through, I have been in positions I never should have been in... dated the wrong guys, but also the right ones. I have lived with some of the wrong people or lived in the right places, but I have also lived with the right ones in the right places. Life is full of lessons, and there are some I don't care to repeat. I have gone through lots of medical things the past few years with everything from bouts of depression to weight issues to being diagnosed with an auto immune disease. I also never thought the inevitable split of my parents and really family would affect me as much as it has. Here I am, an adult, and angry and feel kinda... broken... when I was not in the marriage, and the divorce does not change who the people are individually in my life. I have worked through most of it through the support of my amazing friends whom I couldn't love more than I do today.

Always about a week before til a week after I am very contemplative on where I am in life around my birthday. I think society brings about expectations  for people on where they should be. By 30, you are supposed to have life all figured out and you are supposed to be stable, in a job, married, and if you are in the christian sub-culture... then you should probably have kids (pretty much the nuclear perfect family). Obviously, I am no where close to even half of those expectations. Granted, I am not in overwhelming debt many of my friends find themselves in with credit cards and those things. I am itching in completing my MBA, which I am hoping for next December if everything goes according to "plan". I am thinking somewhat long term about "buying" in the next 1-3 years a home of the sorts (condo or townhouse really), continuing my career path with Verizon and doing something other than sales, but thinking more long term with operations, management, marketing, or human resources.

With that does come some plans... and part of that is the time frame of my time here in New York. Many are already thrilled and some seem to be more bummed than I am. I will be moving back to California to finish my MBA because there is a class or two I need more help with and being online is not going to get me the success I need. I want to finish this program through Hope and I don't care how it has to go. I know with that I am also ready to start some of my other goals I just listed as well as some bucket list items such as getting my motorcycle license (be a cool way to ring in 29), be around for my two best friends getting married and being closer to my family, friends, and "settling down". It almost seems funny that I will end up settling in San Fernando Valley because really I grew up there with going to church and making some of the best of friends and it is familiar, but I also will be experiencing it through a different perspective.

As 28 comes faster than the speed of sound... I am reflective. Part of it is filled with "what if's" or "Had I....", but nonetheless there is some good and bad that comes with it. Wishing how something would be won't change what it is. I feel like part of me is still searching for the great impact I am to have while I am alive. Another is really seeing God in a different way. I have experienced God's grace over and over, and that I am reminded no matter how much life truly sucks sometimes... God is faithful. His faithfulness is always something we can count on, and it is something that never changes. There are days I hate being at work, or days I am super homesick (and something I feel like I shouldn't be dealing with when my days and months are numbered here to an extent). There is also fear that I will get the drag out from work in transferring back to California-- regardless of the capacity of my position,  and there is also fear I am stuck. My life verse that has been with me since right before I graduated college follows me now and I close with this:

"I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, and to give you hope and a future". -Jeremiah 29:11