The countdown has officially started. 48 hours left until I officially turn 29. I spent the day doing all the mundane adulting tasks required of me, and spent the night having dinner with the girls. We caught up on all the things that had gone on in the past couple of weeks since we had last seen each other. I left to go to a speakeasy with one of them afterwards where we spilled our fears about the future. Nothing was ever off topic with my friends, and I appreciated that. Birthdays always had a way of making you confess your fears about the upcoming future. We talked about our financial, mental, and physical burdens, and about how unprepared we felt about the upcoming years. I always felt as if I was leap years away from catching up to the societal goals placed amongst us. Here I was in credit card debt, single, unable to run a mile in ten minutes and throwing money down the toilet (also known as paying rent). I thought about all the goals I had set for myself earlier in life and how I had not even tackled any of my personal goals. To be fair, I had set these goals when I was 21 and had no idea what being an adult was truly like. I felt like a failure, but realistically I knew that my reality was the reality for most. Why had society set such impossible goals to be reached? If I didn’t even have it halfway together by 29, how would I get it together by thirty? I knew I could not fault everything on the universe, but I felt slightly better in doing so.

I enjoyed dinner. The place was beautiful. Low lights hung and we sat outside on one of the nicer August nights. We followed up by going to a speakeasy. A place were lights were dim and drinks were flowing. It was down to just me and one friend. We got approached by one guy. I believe his name was Jeff, but we were so deep in conversation we chose to just sit and continue our conversation amongst ourselves. I had no interest in him anyway. I was quite picky these days. If I was going to be single for this long, I wanted the end goal to be worth it. The place was filled with cigar smoke and endless drinks. By the second drink I was already buzzed. I was even more confused about life and how to check off my what felt like an endless list of goals. I had decided that this was going to be the year, I had to make somewhat of a difference in my mundane life. I wasn’t sure how, but I was adamant that I would not leave my 20s with not one boxed checked. Physical. Financial. Mental. Emotional.