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Something’s been different. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but things have just seemed different for a few months now.

Some have used the term “quarter-life crisis,” but I don’t know, if that is the thought of myself and the others being nearly 25 years old, research tells us that we will average approximately 75 years, therefore making this “a third-life crisis.” But since we really don’t know how long our existence might be, we can call it a “mid-life crisis” as far as we know…

Maybe it’s as my one friend recently said to me when I had asked her if she had noticed me acting differently lately or not really seeming myself. She said maybe I’m just growing up...

I don’t know. I mean in if that’s it, I haven’t really “grown-up” in the professional sense yet, as I am still doing the school thing, even though it is at a different level than in the past. But I suppose I’m doing the part-time work and school thing, so that is slightly different.

The friend also mentioned maybe it could have come from my recent professional experience from my internship; and I suppose that could be too…

Then I’ve had the thought, well maybe it’s hormones. I’ve had a friend, who is slightly older, recently tell me that it was around my age—25 or 26—that she began to have different reactions to her menstrual cycle causing her to be more moody and cranky around that time. Maybe if that is what the deal is, I will finally be out of what my uncle recently has called “puberty,” for which my face will be very grateful…HA!

I don’t know. Maybe I am just getting older. Maybe I’m feeling more stressors and responsibilities than I have in the past, though I’m not real sure exactly what they are at the moment.

I’ve also heard from someone else recently that the age they dreaded the most and became the most depressed about hitting was 25 years old (and this individual is 52 years old now). He said he wasn’t sure why, but for some reason, he had a hard time handling turning 25.

Oh joy…

And while I’m not real sure what the difference and reasoning behind it has been lately, I know that things have just seemed different from normal.

Some things are external. Like when considering my car and travel for example. Recently I have gotten my first traffic ticket, gotten my first flat tire, and just this week experienced my first time, out of hundreds of trips (yes, it is that many, I just did some quick math), of missing my schedule for dropping off my little cousins for school because of traffic issues—which of course I had no control over, but still.

Then personally things have seemed different. I just haven’t felt my normal state of no-stress, no-worries self lately. I don’t seem as laidback and “whatever.” I feel as if I’m letting a lot more bother me nowadays that normally I wouldn’t. I have felt as if things that normally I wouldn’t give a second thought too are coming back for second, third, or even fourth reminders to my mind making me become frustrated about it, when normally I just wouldn’t care.

But besides those, it isn’t necessarily all negative differences. Other areas have just seemed different, or maybe I’ve just been more noticing of some things.

It has seemed as if recently more and more of my friends are coming to me out of trust and telling me things that they have only shared with a few other people. I can’t tell you how many times lately I’ve heard, “well, I haven’t really told many people (if any) about this yet, but…” I’ve discussed everything from therapy issues, sexual orientation issues, issues between close friends, future schooling plans, future career plans, moving plans, and other topics with friends who have asked for my trust in keeping our discussion between the two of us. And in each conversation I have kept a promise of confidentiality.

While I have looked at this “difference” as an honor, one in which I feel good knowing my friends trust talking to me about such topics, I feel as if this is occurring more and more frequently, making it a difference. But once again, I’m not sure; maybe I’m just becoming more aware to it now than before.

But still other differences have seemed to be. I’ve felt more open about and “okay” with different people knowing who I truly am. I suppose this is more in reference to certain people reading my blog. I mean we all go through the initial shock of finding out certain people read, or have been reading our blogs (which is funny in the first place, because you would think when we decided to make a blog we would have been aware of the fact that they could possibly be reading it since it IS out there for the public). And still, once we find out about them being among the reading audience, we are still at first hesitant to write as we had been writing before our awareness of their “presence.” But I think what it really comes down to is a state of accepting our self for who we are and realizing that we really don’t have anything to hide, if that is who we are as a person.

So what? I might not be the person they thought I was, but I’m still who I am, whether they had a false impression or not. As long as I was never trying to be someone I wasn’t, then so be it that they have now been enlightened on my true identity and beliefs and values.

What’s reassuring is knowing that if you were always this person—the person that is being painted, perhaps with more detail than ever before in your blog—then though someone might have had a false impression of who you were based on their OWN wrong assumptions, then really, you in no way have changed, so hopefully they will be aware of that, and mature enough to still respect you and love you for who you have always been in the first place.

So I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just hit a bad luck streak with my car and driving lately, and maybe my hormones are doing some switching up real quick, and maybe I’m working in a reality internship scenario with my friends allowing me to work on my confidentiality issues. I don’t know. But I do get the impression that as much as this all seems “different” and not me, it seems it is not as out of the norm for this stage in my life as I originally thought—if you don’t believe me, talk to some other people around my age. I’m beginning to think that “different” would be feeling as your same ol’ self that you have been the past few years.