Quarter of a Century.

Twenty Five.

25 years on this earth, and just yesterday, I counted 25 lines that have formed around my eyes from laughing, and squinting, and probably scowling everyday for the past 25 years.

The other evening, I was walking around my apartment complex and reflecting on my 25 years. (sensing a theme of me walking and getting lost in deep thought..?) I was thinking about my job, and that I need to go shopping for a fridge, and La La Land. Specifically the part in La La Land where *spoilers* Emma Stone is sitting there watching Ryan Gosling play the piano at the jazz bar and life flashes before her eyes. Not her life, but a life that could have been. As the memories circled through, you start wondering about Emma's happiness... Is she happy? Does she love the life she has? Does she have regrets towards the life she gave up? Does she ever get confused about when the appropriate time to sing is during her musical-life? (This is always a concern of mine while watching movie-musicals... How do the characters know when to break out in song? My fear is that I'd break out into song and no one would join me.) But really, I thought a lot about Emma's happiness vs. her contentment. And then I thought about my own happiness vs. contentment.

I celebrated turning 25 by spending the weekend in New Orleans. I had never been and my aunt and my cousin decided we should just make a quick road trip to the Big Easy. It was magical and humid and I ate a lot of really great food. At one point, I was standing outside of a restaurant, watching as a jazz band filled the streets with their music. I had my La La Land moment-- that moment where scenes of life rush through my mind. As I stood there, I thought about the jobs that I applied for in the past year that I didn't get. I was so distraught with each rejection phone call, but each rejection opened up the opportunity to work in my current job. I thought about the ways my heart has been broken. I thought about the sleepless nights and the long drives where I cried in my car by myself. I thought about how that pain, in that moment, felt like it would never end. But now, time has passed and my heart is healing and I can see the joy that has come about from that heartache. I thought about the places I've visited, the friends I've made, and the nights spent twirling and two-stepping to country music. My La La Land experience showed me that I was exactly where I needed to be.

And that's when I realized something fairly profound: I was where I needed to be.

People have lot of opinions about life. What you should major in, what age one should marry, which car gets the best gas mileage, what is morally right, and what constitutes a healthy lunch. Sometimes I get so caught up in everyone else's thoughts that I lose track of my own. Let's face it: I rarely eat a healthy lunch, so let's all move past that one and get on to something more important. I would like to think that I'm following my dreams and listening to my own heart, rather than the opinions of everyone else. Opinions are nice; I certainly have a lot of them, and while I value input, sometimes it gets lost in translation. Sometimes what seems good for everyone else isn't necessarily what is best for me.

That is where the difference between happiness vs. contentment comes into play. A lot of the times, we sacrifice our happiness simply to keep up with someone else, or worse, we sacrifice happiness to keep someone else in our lives. We change our plans. We throw away our childhood dreams. We stop singing in the car. And then, we look around and think "WAIT. What the heck?"

I realized that in the end of La La Land, Emma Stone realizes she is where she needs to be because followed her dreams. She stopped listening to everyone else, and found that she had the gumption and self-confidence needed to take her pretty far in life. Had she sacrificed her dreams for love, or money, or because they seemed "too hard," the ending of the movie would have been much different. Would it have been just as fun to watch? Maybe. Would Emma have been happy? Who knows. Would it have actually won an Oscar? HA!

I feel like my thoughts often drift to the lives I could have lived... But today, I'm reflecting on the life that I live. The life that happens every day, right before my eyes. I can dream of what's to come. I can reflect on what might have been. But most importantly, I have to embrace what is happening.

So I'm going to keep living a La La Land life. I'm unsure if I'll find a love like Ryan Gosling, and my tap dancing is pretty sub par, and I highly doubt that my acting career is going to take off any time soon. Nothing is certain, though.

But what I do know is that the next quarter of my life will be full of a lot of change. It's inevitable. I will be more tired, more forgetful, and have more lines around my eyes than I do right now. I also know that it will be filled with more laughs, more live musicals, more flights to new places, and more attempts to be a good party hostess. Of course there will be sadness, and sickness, and spilled coffee, and sunburns. There will be bad, but there will also be so much good. I think it depends on how you view the challenges you face. And just like Emma Stone, I will keep chasing wholeheartedly after my dreams, and take every opportunity I can get to make my life more like a musical.

"Here's to the ones who dream
Foolish as they may seem
Here's to the hearts that ache
Here's to the mess we make."