I always reflect more on my birthday than on the New Year. I feel like it means more to me about my personal lap around the sun. My 26th lap. This year was one was a good one. A hard one. 

26 was… A lot of hard work. 5 jobs of hard work. A full year of a real, big job with deadlines, and meetings, and projects, and schedules that weren’t my own. A full year of owning a business. A full year of growing in my photography. And the tail end of the year, diving into another side job that has brought me tons of fulfillment and early mornings and late nights because I love to do it. A year of a lot of passionate hustles and booked up weekends. It was traveling to San Antonio, Austin, Park City, New York City, Vermont, places for work, and spaces between it all. It was paying off all my loans(!), stability, and routine. And anxiety. Gut feelings you know. 

It was a ton of hard questions about priorities. Balance, always searching. 

27 is already slower. More space and sun and friends and family. This year is a huge step forward and backwards and sideways. It’s jumping off on my own and making it all work because that’s what you do at 27. Or you think you are doing, until you’re 37 and 47 and look back and laugh. 

It’s going to be less stability and routine. But when you trade those in, sometimes, if you do it right that means more freedom. Less deadlines, less meetings, less schedules that aren’t my own. It’s way more friends and family and travel. It’s trying to be better at fewer things than being okay at too many things. It’s less anxiety already. That is a good thing.