Quarter Life Crisis: Contemplating 23

Something feels so different about turning 23. It feels like I’m coming to the beginning of the end of my youth. And if I’m being honest, that gives me a profound sense of sadness and melancholy. Maybe a little regret. And the sting of loss too (hence the quarter life crisis). What do I have to say for my “young” years? Where was my fun, wild/crazy and carefree period? I feel like I spent most of them so serious, with my head down walking lacklusterly through life—just trying to survive and not get overtaken by the pain of the day to day. 

Oh that hurt, that excruciating hurt of wasted years, weak years, seemingly fruitless years.

I wish that in these past 23 years of life I’d allowed myself to live more. I wish I’d allowed myself more space to develop and discover and feel. I wish I hadn’t created so many boundaries and fences and walls for my soul. I wish I’d listened more to His Truth and let it drown out all of the lies. I wish I’d taken more time to love myself instead of drowning in self-hatred. That self-hatred has taken up far too much of my energy. And now I’m exhausted. What a prideful, selfish and short-sighted exhaustion. The pridefulness and selfishness in wallowing and ignoring the truth that I was created for more.  In being so consumed with myself and my image to the world that I miss the sacred in the everyday. What a narrow view of what life is supposed to be and what a narrow view of God and His greatness. I don’t believe He makes mistakes. (Not to invalidate those very real feelings that are such a struggle to overcome. I just feel like this is where I’m at in my journey). I just long to be whom I was created to be. All for God’s glory. 

And maybe, that was all part of the journey. Those seemingly wasted years were part of the shaping and molding process. But I think there comes a point when more intentionality is necessary.

Maya Angelou said:

“I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.”

Something feels so different about turning 23. Perhaps it’s time for the next step in the process. After a tumultuous youth, that little girl Lissah inside is ready to grow older in wisdom and truth. The invisible part of the journey is ready to manifest itself in perceptible change. It’s time to make the choice to move forward in healing and in maturing. I don’t want to get to the end of my life with only accumulated years and not a greater knowledge and vision and experience of who He is. I want more from this life and I have to make the choice to pursue it. It feels like the end of one era, but the beginning of another. It’s bittersweet.

So here’s to 23, would it be a year of living more purposefully. Of focusing more on Jesus and his glory and grace and less on my own brokenness and incompleteness. Would it be a year of looking upward and outward. Here’s to a year of loving more authentically and with the abandon and freedom that comes from being rooted in His Perfect Love. 

Here’s to a year lived in complete surrender.