25 Years Later

I just turned 25.

A quarter of a century.
Mid-20s.
An age I never thought I’d reach.

Not because I lacked ambition, not because I didn’t have dreams, but because if I’m being brutally honest, I wasn’t supposed to make it this far.

For most of my life, I lived under the weight of an expectation: that I wouldn’t survive past 20. Whether it was due to illness, mental health struggles, or the belief that the world wasn’t built for people like me, the idea of reaching adulthood – real adulthood – felt impossible. I spent years convinced that I was living on borrowed time, that the future was something meant for other people.

And yet, here I am.

25 is just a number to most people. It’s the age when you’re officially, undeniably an adult (as if that wasn’t already forced on you at 18). It’s the age when people expect you to have your life together, to be making “smart decisions,” to be planning for the future.

But to me, 25 is everything.

It’s survival. It’s proof that I kept going even when I didn’t think I could. It’s the accumulation of battles fought in silence, the scars (both seen and unseen) that tell a story of resilience, the nights I thought would be my last but weren’t.

Reaching 25 means rewriting the script I was given. It means learning how to exist in a future I never planned for. It means allowing myself to believe in more.

When you spend your youth convinced you won’t make it past a certain point, planning for the future feels… foreign. I never mapped out a long-term career. I never envisioned myself at 30, at 40, at 50. I never thought about stability or long-term relationships or where I wanted to be in five years.

Because for the longest time, I didn’t think there would be five years.

But something happened along the way. Life kept moving, even when I felt stuck. I built things. I created. I connected with people who made me feel like maybe, just maybe, I belonged here. And even when the weight of everything felt unbearable, I kept waking up.

And now, at 25, I have something I never imagined: a life. A life that’s messy and unpredictable, but mine. A life where I run a business, where I create, where I’m surrounded by people who see me, who love me, who remind me that I am more than my past, more than the dark days, more than the expectation of an early ending.

This birthday felt different. It wasn’t just a celebration – it was a contradiction of everything I once believed.

There’s grief for the version of me who never thought they’d get here. For the years spent believing I wouldn’t make it. For the milestones I never let myself imagine. For the time lost to fear.

But there’s also gratitude. So much gratitude. For the people who stood by me, who reminded me that I wasn’t alone. For the parts of me that refused to give up, even when it felt easier to do so. For the moments of joy that I never thought I’d get to experience.

And for the fact that I get to keep going.

For the first time, I’m allowing myself to look forward. To think about what I want next. Not in a vague, hypothetical way, but in a way that feels real.

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know what the next five, ten, twenty years will look like. But I do know this:

• I want to create.

• I want to love and be loved.

• I want to embrace every part of me that I once tried to silence.

• I want to live

25 is proof that I can. That I will.

So, here’s to another year. To the years I never thought I’d see. To rewriting the ending.

I made it. And that means everything.