Of golden birthday

I made my 27th trip around the Sun on 27th February. That also means I had my Golden Birthday last week. I anticipated the day for the longest time, not because I wanted it to be a grand celebration or anything remotely close to that, but because I knew this day would hold significance for me.

And indeed, it did. I thought a lot about turning 27. It's such a serious age, if you ask me. I've only made a big deal out of a few birthdays since I hit 20. They are:

• When I turned 20 - for obvious reasons, I graduated from my teenage years.
• When I turned 23 - I had started working at this point, and I celebrated it with a whole new set of people. It was different, to say the least, but special.
• When I turned 25 - hitting the quarter-life milestone. It will always be a big deal.

And now, turning 27 is another level of adulthood. How am I 27 already?! It's like you blink, and suddenly you realize that you are responsible for every outcome of your life. Nobody else is answerable for the choices you make. You rely on yourself 99% of the time, and you decide who you want to be.

You don't know how or when everything changed, but when you look back, you realize how far you've come and how much things have changed. That's when you hope you have been making the right moves thus far because it's too late to go back.

Every birthday, I'm always retrospective, so you will hear different versions of the same thing every year. Mostly, it's for me to stay grounded with who I am and the person I want to be. Truthfully, it's just how my brain works. So here's to 27 - the last few years before hitting the big 3-0.

Alhamdulillah for this life :)