Turning 27: A message on love, faith and perseverance

I’m 27 and only now understanding what real faith and perseverance actually looks like. If you feel lost, I wrote this for you; if you’ve recently had a birthday, I wrote this for you.

I rang in my 27th year here on Earth stuffing my face with my father’s famous baked ziti and a sweetly layered bucket of trifle that my mother and niece made. Layers of chocolate cake, pudding, cool whip, and candy. Dessert heaven.  

Prior to this, each of my early-to-mid twenties birthday parties were charged with massively loud crowds of people, alcohol, and illegal fireworks. The type of parties our neighbors called the police about.

But I welcomed this drastically quiet change. 

I’ve always cherished birthdays. Some people dread being serenaded over a thickly frosted cake speckled with wax droplets– but I love it. I am of the rare breed who thinks surprise parties are cool. Organizing parties may be more fun than attending someone else’s.

But in the days leading up to my 27th, something shifted. Of course, the world is in a much darker place than it was when I turned 26, or 25. At the onset of the recent Coronavirus scare, I was quickly thrusted into the life of an isolated, jobless, single womanhood I was not prepared for– how could anyone have prepared for these last few months?  

And as I’ve written in recent posts, it’s been a difficult ride. It still is. But my 27th birthday was approaching, and I found that it marked something worth discussing considering the way people around me were talking about it…

I started to feel a sense of urgency, this odd impending doom with every comment: “Wow, one year closer to 30!” or “Geez, your 20’s are almost gone.” 

Like I was becoming a walking hashtag for anti-aging. 

It’s an impulse, I think. When someone asks if your birthday is coming up. They ask how old you’ll be, you respond, and they need something clever to say.

But I believe it’s essential to see how detrimental this mindset can be. This negative flash-forwarding outlook of time and expectation. Coloring your present in dreaded anticipation of the future. 

Like, what does it mean to be “one year closer to 30?” Isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t that mean I lived a whole nother year? Is that not an accomplishment and celebration in itself?

The older I get, the less excited people seem to be about these milestone years. 

So I’m flipping the switch; I’m lighting another candle. And another, and another. 

I’m seeing 27 as my New Year.

What does December 31st turning into January 1st mean for you? Many people designate January 1st as day 1 of their New Year’s Resolution goal, whether they follow through or not. It’s the day 2020 will become 2021… and so on.

It’s a societal celebration– the beginning of a new year. It means we can plan for another 365 days. So, we start fresh. Buy a new planner. Get used to signing papers with the new date. Buy a gym membership. Pick a diet plan. Get a new hairstyle. Post a “Cheers to” picture on Instagram with a punny caption about something New. 

January 1 = Day 1. New year, New Me. Well, what does that mean? And why do you need to start over? Incidentally it’s not really starting over. More like starting over and over and over again because the first real start never took. We become our own cycle of reestablishing who we are, and thus the pressure of reinventing someone new every January.  

Last Thursday, I moved from 26 to 27, which represents a change too. A significant “new year” for just me. I get to decide who 27-year-old Lisa is. How is she different from 26-year-old Lisa? What has changed? What are her 27-year goals?

Perseverance over reinvention: our past selves

No, I’m not talking about reincarnation. I don’t believe in it. And one of my 27 stakes I’ve decided on is sticking fully to my guns, acknowledging and standing firm in my beliefs even in the face of opposition and persecution– I’ll get to this later. 

One of my favorite stories I read in grad school was “11” by Sandra Cisneros. It’s about how we are made up of all of the past versions of ourselves. In other words, when you are 11 you are also 10, 9, 8… 

We evolve over time. Grow into who we are at each different age, but we carry all of our past versions too. This sentiment intrigues me I think mainly because the white-washing idea of “New Year, New Me ” is destructive. It beckons us to believe we must start over or reinvent ourselves every January 1st.

After the excitement and hope of the new resolutions wear thin will come the inevitable disappointment that we yet again let ourselves down: either oh well….back to the old me I guess, or I’ll try again next year. And there we are, awaiting in anticipation a future that may never even come. 

We are the product of our upbringing and everything we’ve experienced. Although we need to live in the present, it’s impossible to do so without acknowledging that it’s not reinvention that has to happen, but perseverance. 

per·se·ver·ance

/ˌpərsəˈvirəns/

noun

noun: perseverance

persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.

Digging for Faith in a 27-layer birthday

Much like my mother’s heavenly trifle, my 27th birthday is a layered one.

I am 27 Lisa. But I am also 25 Lisa, 18 Lisa, 16, 13, 5 Lisa… We cannot separate who we are from who we’ve been. You are your timeline. Growing is not the same as starting over. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of being brand new.

We have so much to learn from our past. But first, we must acknowledge our past pains, losses and traumas, loves, and the lessons we’ve learned from every single one. And we take those lessons into our new year with us. And understand that 27-you is not a reinvention, but rather a forward-movement.

Step forward into your new year. 

There has been a much more, most important and significant turn in this bizarre year of 2020 that I’m embracing at 27.

Bringing it back: I grew up in a Christian household

We attended church on Sundays, prayed as a family most every night. I wasn’t allowed to indulge in the same movies and books as my classmates were– see: 4th grader gets Harry Potter banned from classroom reading. All of which I’m thankful for. 

I grew into my later college years, and while my faith never left me completely I’ll admit, it dimmed. I stopped living the life I knew God had intended for me, and I tripped over my own beliefs and morals in my everyday interactions and relationships. 

I’ve talked a little about my struggles with depression and abuse in a past blog post, but I intend to go into more depth in the future. These horrible experiences came from this lack of integrity in my faith to the point where I was lost for a long time. 

Birthdays became loud and inebriated groups of people celebrating another year that meant nothing more to me than an excuse to party and have to work through a severe self-induced headache and sickness the next day.

Depression was once again knocking on my door, and I was getting closer to answering.

I’ve also talked a bit about the experiences I had with my abusive ex-boyfriend and the terrifying car-ride where I could easily have not made it home.

And the encounter with a man who showed up at my place of work the next morning, a complete stranger, with a message. He wanted to pray with me. That should have been enough for me to say, enough is enough. I can’t do this alone. God’s trying to tell me something here.

But instead of lighting that fire under me, it made me lukewarm. With one foot still dangling in the hot comfort of that relationship, and one foot in what I accepted to be a Christian life:

I was praying only when I was: sober (which was not often), alone (I had no community and refused to seek it), and when I wanted something. I was doing what I wanted while simultaneously knowing it was both wrong and oddly enough not what I truly wanted. 

Now, flash forward nearly three years.

When Faith and Perseverance collide: darkness sheds light 

The year is 2020. There is a global pandemic that has forced people into isolation, out of jobs and out of any semblance of normalcy. Sickness, death, uncertainty. I had to decide how I was going to spend my time. 

I stared at my ceiling for nights on end, unable to even attempt to sleep as my anxieties ravaged through me and I felt the familiarity of the beginning stages of a depressive spiral like a lump in my throat– This cannot happen again.

So, I started praying. I opened my Bible and shook the dust from its pages, hoping for something to happen.

The something turned out to be my anxiety slowly washing away from me. The dread of incoming depression exploded into the night and fell to the ground.

And through digging for faith, I persevered.

The more I read, the more I prayed and chose to stay– where I’d normally get up and run into some busy distraction– the more at-peace I felt. The more certain I became that I was headed in the right direction.

And as I slowly turn an exciting milestone, as I face 27, I reflect on all of the pain and lessons I’ve experienced over these past few years. And even if it’s only this one thing, I’ll tell you, it’s that God has not left me. Nor failed me. 

Learning from our past is separate from living in our past. 

In one of my most recent posts, I talked about Nostalgia, how powerful yet destructive it can be. While it’s impossible for us to look at our past objectively, the least we can do is to not let ourselves get sucked in to missing things or desire the ability to go back in time for any reason.

I recently read this somewhere:

Maybe the reason you are not healing is because you are trying to be the person you were before the trauma. 

What a powerful statement that speaks on multiple levels. Acknowledging that traumatic events changes something in us that is irreversible. How the healing comes only after embracing the past and naming it. I think that God wants this from us too. He knows our pain, but He wants us to speak about it, to persevere through it and trust in Him because He’s there, too. 

We may often hear this sentiment from our older acquaintances: “Oh, what I would give to be [insert younger age here] again.”

So what if it’s not faith and perseverance; what if faith is perseverance?

I recently found myself thinking about that traumatic experience I went through, that toxic relationship. I went even one step further and tried to retrace my steps to see what the cause was. Did I have a hand in it? Could I have avoided it? Then I began reminiscing on how things were– who I was– before it happened, in regards to the people around me. 

I was hard on myself: “You were happy with this before that,” “You were planning this before that.” And I started seeing my 25th year as a preferable version of me, like I was somehow more valuable then, like I could be 25 again…

Idolizing our pasts, romanticizing it even. These are lies we tell ourselves. Slippery like wet leaves– one step can send us soaring back into that dark place.

I don’t want to be 25 again; I want to be 27. Me. I want to grow and live the way God intended and planned for me. And having faith that that’s possible, despite a rocky and destructive past, is how I will continue to persevere.

Why are we afraid of getting older?

Because it means change. And because we’re constantly told it’s a bad thing. It’s in the social media complex, airbrushing our photos, layering them with filters and “enhancements” to make us look seamless, timeless. All these worldly obsessions. It’s in the plastic surgery culture where people plump their bodies with anti-aging plastic material in hopes of preserving deception.

We forget that it’s a privilege to grow old.

Speaking of romanticizing the past: You know that popular movie premise of time loops? Where the main character wishes for some kind of redo or reliving of a certain time or age? I’m thinking: Groundhog Day, or Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas. The lesson from these films is always this: Things happen the way they happen, but reliving the past can’t even change them.

I don’t talk to many of those who were in my life at the time when I was 25. The relationships I had have since disintegrated or been broken forcefully. This is to say, those people are no longer in my life post-trauma and therefore have no influence, input, or support for who I am and who I’m constantly becoming. 

Considering what made me happy back then, in regards to both other people and to actions and events, will do me no good now. 

I’m embracing 27 with this new perspective: Faith is perseverance

Yes, I am one year closer to 30. That’s just mathematical. But, 30 means nothing to me right now. I haven’t gotten there yet, and– not to sound too doom-and-gloom, but– considering the way the world is heading, I have to think that only God-willing may I make it to 30. 

So, what am I doing right now?

I’m taking better care of myself. I’m embracing my relationships and prioritizing them. And in this way, I’m working towards a healthier relationship with my family; I’m digging into the root of my true friendships and getting to know my closest friends more deeply. I’m even reaching out to old friends– rebuilding bridges that may still be salvageable.

Most importantly, I’m rebuilding my relationship with God. When I consider how long I’d put my faith on the back-burner, I realize I may have missed out on so many blessings God wanted to bring into my life that I simply refused to make myself available for. 

I’m not perfect and I never will be, but this new direction gives me everything I need to work towards an even stronger version. In this 27th year, my focus is not only on who I am in this new year, but who I am in my relationship with Christ. What am I doing and what may I continue to do to live a Christian life.

Why am I bringing this all to you?

Because this blog is something I’m proud of. It has been a means of being a light for readers who may be in the dark. Of providing inspiration for those who may just need something to look forward to, somewhere to find comfort. Of being a positive presence, being real. This blog is me, open and available.

And it’s impossible to separate my beliefs and life experiences from what I write for you. 27-Lisa has joy. She has conviction. Victory over victim hood. God over self. Love over resentment. 

This is the happiest of birthdays, my Lovelees. And I’m so excited to share my 27 with you. Cheers to being one year closer to 30!