Peacefully turning 25 was… surreal. It was nothing like I thought it would look or feel. The past couple of birthdays I delayed having a really grand party, declaring that I was “saving it” for my quarter life mark. I was very nervous about the milestone overwhelm, expecting the anxiety of asking, “What have I accomplished?”

But instead, I got a ragtag group of exactly three people and we drove a little ways out of the metropolis for coffee, a view, dinner and a midnight salubong. We traded light advice on work, skills of our trade, some perspective on goals, maybe. They told me how well I was doing. We didn’t exactly get away from things, just looked at them from some distance. It was quite ordinary, an unrushed and undramatic moment of setting adulthood.

I did not, at any point, feel like I had to orchestrate something to make my day feel significant to somebody else. I did not require myself to feel important, just comfortable. I spent it how I wish I could spend all my weekends: nourished, supported, and quite content, thank you very much.

I like how just a few days later, I met this beach. We thought at first that the waves were playful, interrupting us with mischief and insisting on being part of our fun. Later on I realized it wasn’t insisting on anything. It simply didn’t mind who it happened to comfort or please as it went and did as waves do. It lived, danced, and played, just happening to cleanse things by existing. There’s a metaphor in there for me.

It’s a weird time to be realizing the weight of different things: the extent that some people do/don’t care about you, the feeling that you’re after and what it takes to get there, the self-disclosure regarding the things that matter more than you’d like to admit. The question of what I care too much about, and what kind of good I accidentally create by being me.

So my “crisis” isn’t about the height of my achievements but the depth of the things I carry with me. Is my heart whole? Is what I have reliable? Is what I share valuable? My hope is to write to you a year from now and still be asking questions, only because I had been too busy doing good and living true to answer them.

P.S. Hello again, loves. These quiet corners will start moving again in a while.