A quarter of a century.

I have to admit, after my 25th birthday, I underwent a little quarter-of-a-century-crises. I am not quite sure if the work-load and school-stress were getting to me, or if I was just being silly about turning 25. After all, nothing changes when you turn a year older, right? You do not magically get the superpower you always wanted (in my case eating as much chocolate as there is in the world, to save the world from… a chocolate-monster?). You do not magically fulfill all your lifelong goals with a blink of an eye. And you do not, I repeat, you do not, all of a sudden get a red carpet rolled out, whenever you enter a room. There goes the high expectations for my young life… Well,I tell you what happened on my 25th birthday. I dreamed about dolphins and whales. In a way, that is nothing special, because I dream about them all the time. I cannot tell you why they are recurring in my dreams, I am not obsessed with them, not overly anyways, nor do I indulge hours and hours of documentaries or watch Free Willy 24/7 (unless I am sick and home bound) but be that as it may, I still dream about them. I looked into dream interpretations, trying to figure out what my subconsciousness is trying to tell me but to be honest, I don’t make much of it. So I dream about whales, touching their skins, swimming with them, so what? It’s not like that’s really crazy or isn’t it?

I was thinking about getting in a cage and “swim” with sharks but recently, after I turned 25, that idea just doesn’t quite seem like the super-bright idea I made it out to be a couple months before I turned 25. If someone would give me the opportunity, I probably would still do it, but would I buy my ticket now and book the first flight to Capetown if I could? Probably not. Swimming with whales seems like a much smarter and saver idea but to be honest, I am not quite sure I want that either. If I were supposed to swim with whales and sharks, wouldn’t I be a fish? I mean, I am all for trying new things but I am also all for, staying on the safe side and not trying to get yourself injured. What a great headline this would be: 25 year old fulfilled her lifelong dream of swimming with whales and sharks and gets knocked unconscious by the tale-fin of a whale and eaten by a shark. That’s not quite what I imagined life would be like.

But here is the crazy thing, I believe my 25th birthday hit me so hard, because I just didn’t quite imagine what my life would be like. Not in a million years would I have imagined my life to be so awesome and special and far more than I ever wished for. I didn’t expect to be with A, nor did I expect to be in Norway, out of all countries. I didn’t expect to have a job, that I love so much and school, that makes me incredibly happy. I didn’t expect it, because I didn’t figure it would be possible to be 25 and be so incredibly lucky and happy. It just didn’t seem possible and sometimes I have to pinch myself to realize, that it is actually real.

And here is the crazy thing, I just turned 25 a few days ago and it was the greatest birthday ever. I know I say that every year, but it is true every year. The past 25 birthdays have been amazing, I mean seriously. I could go on and on about how awesome my parents, my friends and my love made my birthdays. While living in the US, I came to visit my friends and family in Vienna when I was 20. I went skydiving in Las Vegas, when I was 21. I planned a family reunion and ate the best and biggest burgers (with my entire family) in Vienna when I turned 22. With 23 I flew a little two-seat-airplane for an hour almost all by myself while listening to a bunch of people giving out their coordinates. With 24 A gave me the wheel of love and decorated the walls with all kinds of pictures from all the aquariums we went to (this might also be the reason why I keep dreaming about whales, seeing all the underwater-creatures constantly…) and with 25? Well, with 25 my fiance baked me a shark cake.