The day I turned 21 my father celebrated his 50th (birthday twins) so we made sure to party. I had a gathering with my friends one weekend, I went out with my family the next, and if I’m honest, I felt on top of the world. My academics were on track to allow me graduate early, I had a gap year application in progress, I had a long-term relationship that I figured would be “it” … Soon I’d be married, living far away from the midwest, and in some wonderful graduate program.
But midnight rolled around to begin my 25th birthday this past week and I was sitting on my bed alone in South Minneapolis. My thumb scrolled through Lizzo’s Vanity Fair interview on my phone while my cat slept in my lap. Although I had three housemates watching horror movies together upstairs, I had no spouse, no graduate degree, and no brownstone apartment on the East Coast as I had once dreamt I would.
(But I did get to see Lizzo live – so that was a win)
Screenshot from 2020 uprisings
For a while 21 to 25 years old felt like four years of failures. I lost my romantic relationship, I lost my internship in Bolivia, I lost my internship in Peru, the uprisings in Minneapolis cost some of my community and stability in the USA … heck, at one point even my therapist quit (she moved into crisis work full time – I didn’t take it personally). Nothing in my life felt like it was going in the right direction (plus we had a pandemic so the whole world was falling apart too).
My mental health stayed at a low point throughout most of this. I was always in contact with professional support, but there was no time to process everything I was going through. I was in survival mode. I had no excitement to make it to 25. I had lost any vision of the future, any goals, and lacked any motivation to shift my perspective beyond the day to day I was living. I mean, how could I have any optimism when every single plan I had worked towards was stripped from under me?
I’m thankful for the friends who told me to rest when I needed to rest, to cry when I needed to cry, to push past the cliché “it’s okay to not be okay” and really truly be a mess. I spent my days filling journals at coffee shops and still had no emotional energy left. I stripped every mental framework I had built over my life down to the bones to see if anything was worth salvaging.
I found pieces that were, and it’s been a telling journey.
It started with accepting and admitting how out of control I am. Something I thought I knew, but who’s to say I won’t get kicked out of my job/housing/country again? It felt different to accept after testing it multiple times.
It also meant facing pieces of myself I had been taught to hate. I still couldn’t shake the memories of people telling me my future spouse was the only one who should know about my abortion (and then I’d be lucky if they could look at me the same for it).
I’m not here to pretend like I’ve completely figured the whole “self love” thing out (it gets complicated when I still get emails from old mentors reminding me “self forgiveness isn’t Biblical”), but I am so much further than my little 21-year-old brain could have processed.
She never would have believed that I’d speak publicly about my abortion. She would have a hard time comprehending I told friends who responded with genuine love. In fact, her mind would be blown to find out that in opening up, I found friends who had also had abortions. Even though she was trained to believe she’d always be alone and misunderstood, I’d be able to show her otherwise.
Making it to 25 years old might not look like what 21-year-old me thought it would, but I am really proud regardless. I finally allowed myself to celebrate again with my friends – who love me exactly as I am.
This upcoming weekend I’ll be participating in Pro-Choice Minnesota’s Run for Your Rights which provides funding for abortion access in Minnesota. The first time I ran this race I did it alone, but I’m excited that this year I’ll have a team of people participating with me. Many of you aren’t in Minnesota, but it’d mean a lot if you’d consider making a birthday donation to my page anyways. With the way abortion access is restricting, keeping abortion accessible in Minnesota is more important now than it has been before.
And regardless of if you’re able to donate, please also set aside some time to educate yourself before this next election. There is so much more on the ballot than just the presidential race.
Thank you for supporting me in this journey, and making my 25th birthday something to celebrate. Even just giving my words your time and energy is supportive. <3
Click here to donate. My goal is $650 – about the amount of money my abortion cost me.