23 | Ella Thinks Aloud

Birthdays are momentous by nature, some more than others. There are birthdays when you feel that your world’s about to change, like when you reach the so-called sweet sixteen, when you turn eighteen and get your driver’s license, or when you turn twenty-one and are officially of legal age in all countries. Some can even be less universal and more personal, like the year you get your first bike, or the year you’re allowed to start a relationship, or the year you start working. As you go along, you realize that some birthdays are like normal days. That doesn’t mean that these birthdays are any less important, but somehow, you fail to find anything to be excited about. Instead of a milestone in life to look forward to, some birthdays leave you staring straight into the unknown, nothing set in stone and all decisions on your shoulders.

Two + Three = Twenty-three. Photo by Tito Boy Masamayor.

Twenty-three somehow feels like that. Truth be told, twenty-three caught me off guard. Life was passing me by as usual when it suddenly hit me that I was turning one year older. When people asked me what I wanted to do on my birthday, or what I expected from this year, I literally had no idea what to say. Sure, this year I’ll be a third-year medical student, but other than that, I don’t know what else I’m supposed to expect or to do.

I never imagined it that way. Back in my preteen years, I always imagined twenty-three-year-olds as mature adults who had their life together. I don’t feel anything like that at all. At twenty-three, I can be a lot of adjectives – confused, struggling, feisty – but ‘together’ is not one of them. There are pieces in my life I have yet to find, let alone put together. At this age, I feel like I have a blank page that I have to write on, and I’m so petrified of writing the wrong things, because in real life, you can’t erase your mistakes and you can’t tear out the pages. I’m not certain of what this year holds for me, but I do know that as a rule, growing older should mean getting wiser. Inevitably, I’ll be expected to ‘grow up’ and ‘act my age.’ That used to be an exciting prospect, but now, knowing that you have to be more responsible for yourself sounds terrifying.

On the flipside though, it’s also exciting. Despite the daunting challenge of being an adult, it’s also an opportunity to enjoy this age, to be the young and headstrong woman that I want to be. I can’t redo whatever I’ve done wrong, but I know I can make new decisions. I can create new memories. I can take that blank page and do whatever I want with it – write, doodle, sketch, color, anything at all. I’m excited to get started on it even if I don’t know how it will turn out. That’s all up to me, I know, but I wouldn’t want anyone else to do that for me, anyway.

Maybe there will be more years like twenty-three, more years for new beginnings, more years to explore and figure things out, more years to just be grateful for everything. Come to think of it, maybe this happens every year, anyway. Back then, this was obscured by the thought of birthday parties, of licenses, of being ‘legal,’ but these opportunities were always there. in fact, they are there every day. We don’t need a birthday to remind us that we can start anew, that we can live our life the way we want it, or that we are blessed with a wonderful, beautiful world to live in. Birthdays, after all, are technically meant to track your age, not your life.

Still, I celebrate this year because it’s been a great one. I have new lessons, new relationships (read: not romantic), and new experiences in my arsenal. Sure, there were negatives here and there, but they necessarily intersperse with the positives. God has blessed me with one more year that’s passed, and that’s definitely worth blowing the candles for. Whatever the coming year holds, I look forward to it, hopeful that it will be even more amazing.