Twenty-nine

29 and feeling the most fabulous I ever have...From about 17 to 24 I felt so horrible and depressed on my birthdays. I think I just felt that everything was slipping away so quickly and I wasn't accomplishing enough. Looking back I think it's because I wasn't doing what I really wanted to be doing. I was going through the motions of what I thought I should be doing, or more of what society wanted of "us": Go to college get your career going. What I really wanted to do was get out of Moreno Valley and experience life..whatever that may have entailed. When my 25th rolled around, I woke up and suddenly felt alive, like this was my time. I went skydiving on that day and that act truly symbolized how my life was about to change. I had been teaching fourth grade for one year, I had been in a serious relationship for four, and had lived in the same town for 21. Something inside me was about to shift drastically. That summer I ended my long term relationship. I had never been through any type of break up before, so the pain was almost unbearable and there were times where I didn't think I was going to be okay. I worked through one more school year, about to start my third when God literally gave me a sign to start living the life I wanted. I wasn't exactly sure what that was anymore but one thing I knew for sure: the life I wanted did not exist in Moreno Valley. I knew I wanted to go somewhere far enough away and somewhere where I'd meet people like me. I chose Mammoth Lakes in hopes to become a ski bum perhaps. I really wasn't sure, but three weeks later my Jeep was packed with my belongings and I left my home. That first leap was what I needed in order to break away from a financially secure career I was iffy about as well as the securities of the familiar. Now a few years and two states later I am in a place where I am free to be the me that I want to be.