The dreaded 25th year

Happy Thursday everyone! Are you excited for the up coming weekend? I most certainly am!

Well, I guess I should just jump in here, huh?

Another birthday, another year. The dreaded 25th. 

Turning 16 was a big deal because your parents gave you more responsibility, you could get a job and most of you started driving. 18 was a big year because you were technically an "adult", could go to the clubs (when that was fun to do) and you were headed off to college. Then there was 21 when you could legally drink and your parents still didn't think you were an adult! Although, I am convinced they will never really see you as one until you have children yourself.

As of tomorrow at 3:15am I will no longer be able to say I am in my "early 20's". I will be in my "mid to late 20s". That in itself is a scary thought. Is it as bad as everyone says? Or scary? Is it the year where you actually have to start really growing up? Or will everything stay the same and I am just worrying?! 

Why is it that once we hit (or nearly hit) 25 that we start analyzing everything we do? Where we live. What our job is. Why am I not married? Why don't I have kids? Why, why, why? There are some things I am still questioning, as I rightfully should, and some things I have figured out so far.

Your parents can actually be cool:

I may struggle with this for a while, but I do feel as though I have gotten closer to my mom as I am getting older. There were days when I was younger where I felt like I couldn't say certain things to her. Or swear in front of her for fear of Dawn dish detergent being gargled in my mouth.  Now? Not as much. We understand each other more. We can have intellectual conversations, as well as silly ones. I can say the word "penis" in front of her and she doesn't slap my arm anymore. Not that I say that word a lot. Haha.

It is okay to not be married:

And it is okay to be single. When I was 18 I definitely thought that I would have been married by the age of 25. Now that I am almost 25, I am really glad that I am not. I am not saying that I never want to get married, I just wouldn't want to be married right now. And that is okay. I know many people who are already married that are 25 or younger, and I am not hating on that. They have found their "one", while I'm still testing the waters. And again, that is okay in my book. 

It is okay to not have a child:

And it is okay to have one. Being 25 and not having a child it still okay to me. Like with the marriage thing, I thought I would have had a child by now. Thinking about that now, I am definitely not ready. That may sound selfish of me, and so be it, but I am just not ready. Many can say that you are technically never ready to have kids, which I agree with, but I just don't want them right now. I still enjoy my girls night martinis and wine pajama parties. I enjoy doing what I want, on my own time. And call me old fashion but I wouldn't even consider having a child without being married first. All of this is still okay.

It is okay to have a job and not a career:

I thought I was going to be an RN by now, but that is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I work for a wonderful company right now, which I love, and I am okay with that. It is okay to be 25 and still be unsure what you want to be when you grow up. With the economy the way it is, it is even more acceptable. I am more than happy with the job that I have now, and I will continue with it until I realize what I want to do for the rest of my life, if I ever do. I am still figuring that out!

At what age do you stop getting tattoos:

This is one of those things I am still working on. I have been wanting more tattoos, but is 25 still a reasonable age to be spending money on them? Do I just say no and be happy with the ones I already have? Not that I am not happy with them, I just would have liked to add more to them. But, I definitely have much more important things to save my money for.

 

 At what age do you take your piercings out:

I have had many piercings along the way including my nose, tongue and ear cartilage, but took those out almost 2 years ago. I definitely don't plan on getting anymore piercings. I do, however, still have my belly button piercing in that I had done when I was 16. What would be an acceptable age to take that out? This is something I have been struggling with the past year. This piercing is no longer the "it" thing for me, but I have had it for almost 10 years and thus have become attached to it. Actually, most of the time I forget I even have it!

I have heard meany women say "when I have my first child" or "when I turn 30". I don't plan on having a child anytime soon, and 30 is still 5 years away. I'm not even sure that the hole will close up. I wouldn't want to take it out and the hole close up, and then regret it. I do have a fit stomach, so it's not about how it looks. It's more about how I want portray myself. A belly button piercing is easily hidden in the winter months, but with summer coming up it is harder, esp when you live in a bathing suit.

It is okay to not even know where this blog post is headed:
I'm not really sure I know what I am saying right now. I'm not even sure that this post will have a point to it. All I know is that I am currently happy with the way my life is going, and the things that I'm not so happy about I am working on changing. I am grateful to be alive. I am grateful to have family and friends who love and support me. I am grateful for all the new things that are entering my life! Today I am 24, loving the moment. Tomorrow may be a different story, but we will see how it goes!

Wish me luck!

Until next time!

XOXO
Shawna
  

Update 3/27/13: The belly button ring has since been decommissioned. I was looking at some of my before workout photos, and I figured since I had started on a new healthy path that many things needed to change. That did include the ring being taken out. I will say that it is much easier to shower without it as my loofah doesn't get caught on it anymore! :)

Wordless Wednesday

Hey everyone! 

In lieu of Wordless Wednesday, a few things that made me LOL!

 The above one is for Ash! :)

 I love this!

 And lastly,

Until next time!!

XOXO

Shawna

In a Minor State of Nostalgia

For just a moment, hopefully a long one, a jog down Memory Lane.

It's difficult for me to fathom that almost 16 years have passed since the days when trying new recipes on our Easy Bake Ovens and playing endless MASH games were daily priorities of my friends and mine. Our primary concerns were determining which friend got to "be" Baby or Posh Spice, which boy was the cutest, who would be joining the town cheerleading team in the summer and who would be the first to have a bra.

A few other things that came to me, for the record,

-Disney movies (Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Lion King, Aladdin, and 101 Dalmations, top 5)

-Backstreet Boys/N'sync/Spice Girls/LFO/Hanson

-Nerf Footballs, Barbies, Pokemon, Pogs, Furbys, Nintendo, Gigapets

-Playing Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, Donkey Kong, Pokemon and Pogs with my brothers

-Being a proud member of West Warwick Cheerleading Team and seeing who got to yell the cutest players name and number out, I always got my brothers :(

-Fantasy syncronized swimming in gram's pool

-The Maise Quinn grass at recess trying to build that ultimate cheerleading pyramid

-The Horgan playground after school (the metal enclosed slides, the bridge, the parallel bar that Cheryl always used because she was a gymnast, the "big" swings, the splinters)

-Going to Roller Magic and playing spin the bottle

-Putting on gymnastic "shows" after school, even though we only did cartwheels and forward rolls

-Snapping each others bra in Mr. Driscoll's science class, and actually breaking Vanessa's

-Those MASH games that determined if you were to be poor and have 30 kids or not

-Going to Gelina's in Coventry to get ice cream was such a treat

-Getting voted student of the month wasn't such a nerdy thing, it was cool

Being a kid was awesome, that's the long and short of it. You didn't care how much the heating bill was, who the President was, or when taxes were due. All you cared about was waiting at the lunch table to see if you got that lucky sticker under your tray, how many books you could add to your list to get free pizza at Pizza Hut (without actually reading the books), and when you were going to get to go on a field trip.

We all have so many memories of our childhood and when you get to thinking about it, it can quickly become overwhelming. At the same time, while we retain so many stories from the past, there is also so much that doesn't come back to you.

Sometimes I wish we had the capacity to remember every single thing that has ever happened or will happen in our lifetime. It would be cool to see software developed in the future that can be installed into our brains at birth and act as a storage space, like a drive on a computer, i.e : Life of Shawna Marie Spencer

Life of Shawna Marie Spencer:\Childhood\1997\September\Saturday the 24th\12:25:45 pm

You would probably find in that folder the memory of my mother, my step father and myself driving in his red and white Chevy Bronco, windows down, to The Big Y in Connecticut just because. You would find me in the backseat staring endlessly at the beauty outside, the trees, the grass, the blue sky and the big white puffy clouds. We would just drive there, using all the back roads of course, walk around for a while, and drive back home. We wouldn't even purchase anything. Oh how I miss those Saturday drives. Things were a lot simpler then.

Me being me, and thinking the world is going to end tomorrow, I feel as though the government has already prototyped these instruments and are using them on our soldiers. Oy vey.

OK, this is the point where I stop my rambling and call this a blog post! Let's make a toast to all of our childhood memories, to the one's we'll never forget! 

XOXO

Shawna