I am 26

I can’t believe it has been a year since I wrote my last birthday post and turned 25. But here we are again. I am now officially 26. That feels weird to say and in some ways, almost more adult than saying I am 25 (some would argue that I could never be ‘fully’ adult).

In the post where I wrote about turning 25 I spoke about how I felt as though I had progressed a lot. Which at that point I think I had, especially when it came to learning about what I wanted and needed from friendships and relationships.

I like to look at my life in chapters and I have recently felt very reflective over my life. I feel as though turning 26 is a bit more of a milestone for me than turning 25 was. 

I have spoken a lot on this blog about being sexually abused which started when I was 6 years old. That was twenty years ago now. In some ways it feels as though it was yesterday, but in other ways it also feels as though it was a lifetime ago. So much has happened since then, both good and bad.

However, over the past year I feel as though I have grown a lot as a person and have worked very hard to learn to understand myself a lot more. I have become a lot more comfortable spending time on my own. My mental health is finally under (dare I say it) some kind of control and I also understand how to manage it. I have made a lot of memories with my girlfriend, family and friends. I feel as though I am entering my late twenties in a much better place than I have been in a very long time. Whilst I know there are things that I still want and need to work on I am also happy with the direction that my life is heading. 

Here I am embracing some ‘me time’

I have learnt not to solely focus on the destination but to also enjoy the journey getting there too. 

I also feel very proud of myself that I have made a start on the things I stated I was hoping to achieve during my late twenties. The first was to get a new passport, which I did at the beginning of 2019. The other was to go on some adventures outside of the UK, which I have started off by going to Krakow with Marysia and her parents. I still need to get myself some new tattoos – but I am sure this can be arranged. 

Krakow 2019

As I have spent a lot of the last year working on developing myself as a person I have decided that I want to continue to grow and develop over the next year. The main things that I would like to really work on are:

1. Keeping healthy and really using my gym membership
2. Improve my finances – stop spending money on unnecessary things (Over the last few years I have improved with this but there is definitely still work to do)
3. Collecting memories and not possessions
4. Decluttering – I own a lot of ‘stuff’ and very little of it has any meaning so I would like to work on reducing my possessions and getting rid of the things I am holding on to for the sake of it.
5. Do the little chores – I want to get better at reading my e-mails, making my bed, keeping my room tidy those little things that I just let slip over time. 

I hope that this time next year I can look back at this post and have achieved a few of the things I have decided to work on. Particularly as I think that whilst there have been times during this year that I felt a little bit lost, unmotivated or just not myself I have still managed to do and achieve a lot and am glad I am going into my 26th year on this planet feeling happy and motivated to continue progressing.