On a not-so-beautiful early Saturday evening on Labor Day weekend I find myself at home, thank god. It is such sweet relief to be sitting at my computer and not standing around in an empty restaurant in newly minted fine dining restaurant attire; I am more than happy to leave my black tie in my locker, along with my apron and wine key to be used at a later date. And I am also happy to leave the deep and dark misery I feel that is waiting tables (until I am set in my career) there and stuffed into my locker with other tangible objects.

On this Saturday evening, when I should be enjoying a beach of some sort, I am inside thinking, in a pensive mood and reflecting. I am on the cusp of turning 27 and although the age itself is not horrifying it is most unusual that a large portion of my 20’s has passed me by, realizing that I am not where I am supposed to be just yet but I am closer than I have ever been before. What is most unusual is that I am no longer a child, true I haven’t been a child in years but I have finally reached full-grown-up territory, uncharted terrain if you will where biological clocks tick louder and where every move you make can severely affect the rest of your life. In other words, there is no more fucking around, literally and figuratively. At least it feels that way.

26 sounds safe to me, not as threatening as 27, although I must admit I felt the same way when I turned 25, reaching that quarter of a century mark, feeling as if I had to grow up right then and there. 26 was not the best year and for most of it I had reverted to being a child, sucking up whatever residual childhood I had left in the way that one sips, rather slurps disgustingly loud, that last little bit of Acai Super Antioxidant Jamba Juice until you get that last little bit of blueberry….I mean, I pay almost $6 for the drink and I want to make sure I have every last drop of it, I try to get my money’s worth but it’s also fucking delicious. Am I the only one who still drinks Jamba Juice? I remember when it was made popular by Britney Spears when she was Britney Spears. My age must really be showing now.

I find myself now yearning for the past (I am incredibly nostalgic) and to go back to a simpler time where the most important thing I had to worry about was making sure that my camp t-shirt was ironed and that I was wearing the right color on the right day and then having to make it to camp on time in the morning after having had one too many beers the night before because I would lose so terribly at beer pong (BEIRUT!!) Oh, and remembering sun screen and also remembering to put gas in the car. I was a camp counselor for eight summers and it was a glorious carefree time. What I wouldn’t do to go back.

As time has progressed through my 20’s, life has only gotten harder and I can’t seem to figure out if it has been at my own hand or if it has been the hand I have been dealt. I feel as if I have purposely been challenged, more so over the past year, than at any other point in my life. It’s true that I have become more resilient but I have also become incredibly jaded and much more cynical. I guess that is what happens when you get older: what else could go wrong? I have learned to laugh at hardship upon hardship because at a certain point it actually becomes pretty funny. It’s better than crying.

As I trip and stumble to 27 and say goodbye to 26 on September 8th I can’t help but have mixed emotions: happy to move upward and onward with my life and be finished with what have been the hardest months of my life but sad that I’m moving closer to 30 and now having no choice but to grow the fuck up and realize that credit cards are not another phrase or representation of free money (I knew that before but being the grown-up that I am I am exercising super-human control right now) and that I need to conduct myself as an adult who makes rational life decisions. It’s exhausting. I am at a point in my life where everything is falling apart and everything is coming together at the same time. I’m on to the next chapter and hoping that this one will be easier, less confusing and more exciting than the last.

Hopefully I’ll survive the curse of 27 that Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse couldn’t quite beat (they didn’t live long enough to see their 28th birthday).

Here’s to 27!

Check out my list of 27 honest realities about life you must accept before turning 27 that was published by Elite Daily.

Taryn 

XO