I have been embracing life to the point where I feel I don’t have time to live. Inside of me there is an insatiable hunger to learn more, create more, see more of the world. Beside me is the notebook I have just spent some hours writing ideas in. I was inspired by Charlotte Moore’s poem ‘Advice for the Twenties-ager‘ to write about how I feel being twenty-five. I’d been trying to pinpoint a singular expression for myself, for my own clarity, though I’m realising now that I am more complex. There is a vast amount of interests in my heart that I want to embrace and try.
At twenty-five, I am avoiding the pressure of becoming too settled; I am avoiding an urge to give up on the dreams in my head; I can successfully say that, in my life, I am rather happy.
Something I’m becoming more conscious of is the impermanence of the current moment. In this one, for example, I am sat in a room I adore, that I spend a lot of my time in each day and that I’m acutely aware will one day be a room I used to live in. Because time has a habit of coming to an end. When I was twenty-two I was caught out by this notion, as I have written here before: Though I’ve never been blind enough to believe our care-free youth would last forever, I guess I hadn’t expected some things to end quite so soon either (from Hannah Maggie August 2021).
I spent a lot of time mourning my life of twenty-two regardless that it was my decision to move on from it. Starting again meant having to relearn who I was, when I thought I’d got a good grip on that. I never expected it to be a quick process, or a pleasant one. Actually I am still quite relieved to say it’s ending. What I have learned over the last couple of years is that life is a series of moments you must enjoy before they are gone. What I am blessed with now is a greater understanding of how. Art shows us you can live in one moment too long; you can tweak for the rest of your life and still not be happy with what you have created. You can overdo what can not be undone.
Endings are brave. Admitting it is time to move on is brave.
You are never done. The title of this post is where I started to unravel a lot of these thoughts. In changing styles and direction, I have found the most exciting knowledge that there is always something new to learn or experience. None of them with limitations of age or time or ability. You cannot catch perfection, but in chasing it, you might catch good. Or joy, or elation, or passion, or understanding.
Still, there are some things I believe will never change:
One: Writing will always have the utmost importance to my heart. No matter what else I am doing, I will miss writing. It is integral to the way I live my life.
Two: Things get better. Even at the point of believing they never will.
Three: On a Sunday, I like to wake up early (not because I have anywhere to be, but because I like to be up early). During the quiet of the morning, I make myself a coffee and sit back down on the bed; I read a book; I muse over the most entertaining of my thoughts; I focus on flooding my body with peace. On a Sunday morning I am usually smiling, and thinking I have found the meaning of life.
Everything comes as a lesson or a blessing. I’m very grateful that my life sees plenty of both.
Hannah Maggie 