27 and A Speck In Vivid Orange.

A year ago, I turned 26 in Tasmania surrounded by vast oceans and grand mountains, sipping wine by the beach as the skies turned a fiery orange. I couldn't have felt any smaller at that point in time, a speck in vivid orange, and oh boy did it gave me a sense of perspective: Life's a whole larger picture I can only partially fathom. 

On the same day a year later, the world felt immensely claustrophobic. It's a strange time right now with the pandemic and the deep sense of limbo that comes with it. It was a strange day to turn a little older knowing the world's on a lockdown, as if time hasn't stood still even when the world had seemed to. I could say "strange" a thousand times and it would not have scratched the surface of this displacement I felt. Everyday I was drinking a concoction of anxiety, helplessness mixed with a generous dose of cabin fever.

On the evening of my 27th birthday, the skies turned to the warmest shade of orange. For exactly 25 minutes, my room was painted a fiery colour and there I was again, a speck in vivid orange. A serendipitous reminder that life's a way larger picture I'm only partially seeing. I don't have all the answers and perhaps I will never have all the answers but that's just how much a speck can know.

Growing older this year is hugely about self-realisation upon self-realisation. They say twenties are trying times and they are. 27 and I feel like I'm still constantly learning, unlearning and relearning, a perpetual reconfiguration of self of sorts. It's me growing a quiet understanding of how I work in a world that works in infinite ways and me carving out my own space.  It's sometimes frustrating to attempt to appreciate life in all its nuances and conundrums, but hey, to my 27th year trying.