X is for XXVI

X: XXVI 

When I was very young, I used to watch Disney film and think that that was just how it would be in reality..... 16 was the age I looked up to and considered being "adult." I expected by that age to have my own car, my own house, be married and have lots of children! To be 16 was to be grown up! 

And then I got to 16, and decided that it was definitely NOT the age for me to be a grown up. I was still in school, was going through a really tricky time for my self-confidence (acne didn't help,) and I felt like I had no direction whatsoever. I looked towards 25 and considered that to be the age where everything would happen! I'd be settled, be at the start of the career ladder, and have my life planned out for me. I had 9 years to go...plenty of time to sort things out!

It was only last year, when I turned 25, that I realised that growing up doesn't have happen by a certain age. I can't put a cap on when I expect things to happen for me. When the time is right, things will just fall in to place. Some of my 20s haven't been easy, but I have picked up a lot of life lessons along the way.

And I have been very lucky. I moved out of the family nest when I was 18 and have lived away ever since (by quite a fair distance - 200 miles!) I own my own house, I live by myself now, and am fiercely independent. I don't earn a fortune, but I love my job, and have other opportunities that I can pursue in between my shifts.

I have lots of amazing friends nearby, who are my second family up here. They are there any time I need them, and I know I can always call on them if they are in trouble. After a long and very hard lesson about money whilst at uni, I am quite good at keeping my money in check and don't overspend (too much.) and have taught myself how to adapt two-handed things into one-handed triumphs (shoes, opening tins, painting nails, scaling gorges.)

So, in my 26th year of living on planet Earth, things may not have panned out in the exact way that I envisaged as a child of 5 watching The Little Mermaid, but I think I'm doing pretty well....

.....For an almost grown-up!

Ginger x