#midlife reflections

At twenty-five

In five years, I’ll be 30 years old. In these twenty-five years, I have yet to achieve anything. At 25, I have yet to become the person I have daydreamed myself to be. At 25, I am nothing but failed promises and mourned dreams.

At 25, I am scared of not being anything more.

I had already dreaded the thought of reaching 25 when the new year came. I am unfortunate enough to have been born in the year 2000, so pretending to forget my age is a show I can never play. The turn of every year will always kindly remind me how much time has passed since I was born. The last two digits of every year will always be a reminder of how many years I have left to achieve my dreams. Every year is a reminder for me that time continues to move, while it seems that I have become an unmoved fixture with no achievements to speak of.

At 25, I still don’t know where I am going.

Two weeks before turning 25, my Google search tells me I really do not have the slightest idea what I want to do in life. I know I want to migrate or at least leave the place where I currently am, but I do not have a plan on how to get there. I know I want to see the world and move to another country, but if you ask me if I know what exactly I will be doing there, the honest answer is: I don’t know. I know I want success, but at 25, I still have not found the path that I want to take to arrive at the destination.

At 25, I still have not figured out what I want.

“I don’t have any passion,” were the words I found myself typing in the search bar a few days before turning 25. The truth is, I do not think I have found the thing that ignites me. I know what I want: to be successful and to be the daughter who can give my mother the love she deserves. However, how do I become those things if I do not even know what I want to do in life to get there? As I am writing this, I have realized my rumination is a contradiction. I do know what I want; the how part is where I am lost.

At 25, I do not know how to get where I want to be. At 25, I am a passionless being.

At 25, I am nothing but failed expectations.

People have foretold that I am destined for great things. People have called me smart, talented, and hardworking. Now, in my mid-twenties, I laugh at them because I am none of those things. (Do I actually believe that? No. But I have yet to prove to myself that I am actually all those things.) I wonder if, in their birthday greetings, they have also told themselves that they were wrong about me.

I have set numerous expectations for myself. I will not claim I still have a recollection of all my thoughts from all the passing years, but I know that before turning 25, I imagined myself to be more than the person I am now. In the past, I imagined that at 25, I would have already achieved some of my dreams. In reality, I am nothing but failed expectations with no clear prospects and a burden to my mother.

At 25, I am angry at myself.

The truth is, most of the blame lies in my own lapses. Do not get me wrong. I know that 25 is still fairly young, but allow me to carry the weight of all that I am failing to be and my personal faults that have led me to my failure — right now, anger at myself is all I have.

At 25, I still want to believe in myself.

As I turn 25, I am bleeding in dread. But I still want to have faith in myself. The dust of my failure is thick, and I am covered by it. But it doesn’t have to be the weight anchoring me to the ground where I do not bloom.

I am writing this at 25 as a call-out to myself.

At 25, I can still try to figure out what I want and how to get there.

At 25, I can still have fresh expectations and dreams to look forward to.

So hi there! I guess today is a day of firsts for me and a day of circling back to things I haven’t done in a long time.

Before I begin, I’ll apologize in advance for my ramblings. I am not a writer and I might just drop my random thoughts and feelings here as I try to figure out some things. I am hoping to use this tumblr for just that purpose 😜. Ramblings of a midlife crisis adjacent perimenopausal queen👸. *insert hair flip*

Instead of trying to catch you up from the beginning of my life, I think I will start with this year and fill you in on important things in my life as we progress in our relationship. 😉

At the beginning of the year I decided to read the bible daily. I’ve had a book for about 10 years 😬 that breaks it down daily. So I started that. Been doing good. There have been days that I have fallen short, but not many and I got back on track. I will say that there have been many things that I have begun and not finished, but I’m trying to do better. Earlier this week I lost a close family member. I kinda shook me to my core because it was so unexpected and they were such a good person. Like the best person you could know. Always happy and smiling and I can honestly say I never saw them mad or angry. I take comfort in knowing that he knew and loved the lord. But man it is a tough loss. Since this person is not that much older than myself, makes me examine my life. More to come in this. Today I did something I hadn’t done since COVID, and that was go to mass. More to come in this too. But for now I will say that I am glad that I went. In the past I was super involved in church and besides Covid there were some things that kept me away. Some being just own excuses and shame. But more on all of that and how I felt walking back into a church.

But for now, I will say thank you in advance for being here. It means so much to me that you are coming along in my self discovery.

“Midlife isn’t a crisis. It’s a call. A bold invitation to begin again, with more clarity, courage and care for who you truly are.” - Nadia Renata

Midlife is not the end of something; it’s the start of a deeper, more authentic chapter. It's the season where wisdom meets willingness, where you're finally ready to put you first, not out of selfishness, but out of sacred truth. And this is for both men AND women.

This quote invites us to reframe what we’ve been taught:

🔸 Midlife isn’t something to dread; it’s something to embrace.

🔸 It's where your experiences become fuel for purpose.

🔸 And it's proof that evolution doesn’t expire with age; it deepens.