Twenty-seven

Jake and I are both celebrating our 27th birthdays this week (mine was yesterday, Jake's is Thursday). Admittedly, I've had a hard time turning 27 (my husband, on the other hand, has not. He doesn't know what I'm making such a fuss about... he has a point). It took me awhile to articulate the reason why. At first, I thought it might be The Timeline. My hunch is that most women know what I'm talking about when I refer to The Timeline-- that annoying self-measurement tool that says "I want to complete A,B, and C by the time I am age X, Y, or Z." The Timeline haunted me a lot more in my early twenties, but it still rears its ugly head every now and then. Initially, I thought that might be the problem, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had actually done on a lot of things on The Timeline--I got my Bachelor's degree, I volunteered overseas, I (sort of) backpacked around (part of) Europe, I've had two wonderful jobs for organizations whose missions I wholeheartedly believe in, I've ran a half marathon or two, I got married to my high school sweetheart, we started over in a totally new place (and LOVE it!), and in just 5 short months, I'll have a Master's degree in hand. So what exactly is my problem??

Thankfully, I am apparently not the only one who is having a hard time with turning 27. And thankfully, one of my commiserating friends was finally able to articulate her rationale--once she said it, I totally resonated with it. It's not that I haven't accomplished what I wanted to accomplish by this age. It's not a fear of getting older. It's not even about being in my late twenties (although I still don't really love that). It's the realization that 27 years have gone by SO. DARN. FAST.

So while Jake and I are looking ahead at what, undoubtedly, has the potential to be another huge year of change, it is my goal to slow down and soak it up. To stop wishing that things would move quicker (yes, even my last 2 terms of my graduate program). Yes, life after June 15th is filled with uncertainty. Yes, I'm going to get a new job. Yes, we might just have to move, again. Yes, we're going to switch roles so that Jake can go back to school. And yes, we are going to start talking seriously about babies and saving up for a down payment. But for the moment, we are still a student/working/young married family pinching pennies in a college town and we are going to embrace everything this season brings, and enjoy it for all that it's worth. Cheers to 2013 and our 27th year!