I have been dreading turning 23 ever since the beginning of this month. As the days get closer to my birthday, the thought of turning 23 has just made me feel… weird. Each time that I get asked, “Are you ready for your birthday?!” or “How do you feel about turning 23?!” I reply with the same answer - *shrugs* “ehh.” This is supposed to be my “Jordan year,” but I have not put too much feeling and excitement into it yet, as much as everyone else has.

Back in high school, when I was a freshman, I laid out this whole plan for my future. I had planned that by the time I was 23, I would already have a set career with a steady income, living in an apartment by myself, with a dog. By the time this post is published, I will already be 23, but with no set career, no steady income, no living by myself, and, unfortunately, no dog.

Instead, I am still finishing up my last semester at UNC Charlotte as I struggle to successfully get through my classes, I am currently looking for a job to make some extra cash, and I am sitting in my room at a student-living apartment that I share with three lovely roommates.

So yeah, turning 23 soon has not been that exciting since I am nowhere that I am supposed to be in the plan that my 14-year-old-self made out. It is actually quite difficult to accept that I am not where I want to be in my life, but I have been realizing more that it is absolutely okay not to be and that I need to stop dwelling on it.

We all know that plans do not always work out the way that they are meant to be. It seems like my 14-year-old-self forgot to plan out the two years that I had to do at a community college right after high school and the three years at UNC Charlotte.

There was no planning of the heartbreak that was going to cause my grades and GPA to drop, which held me back from moving forward in my program. She failed to mention that it was going to be hard as hell to bring my GPA back up, and she definitely forgot to plan out the numerous failed attempts that I have endured so far in college that have held me back from where I am supposed to be at the age of 23.

Maybe I am not where I thought I was going to be in my life at this age, but at least I am still trying to get there at some point. Maybe my plan did not work out, but thankfully it did not because it has made me come to terms with all of my failures that kept any of my plans from following through in the first place.

I have acknowledged the fact that everything comes at its own time, and it all falls into place eventually, just like my mom has said to me so many times before. There is no way that I can keep planning my life out when what happens in life is unplanned and unexpected anyway, and if I keep on then I will just keep on getting disappointed.

Small plans work out (sometimes), but life plans almost never do. I still have my goals that I know I will achieve eventually, but I am not going to plan how I get there anymore. To be honest, I probably should give myself a little more credit. Perhaps I should quit looking at the bigger picture for a little bit, and take time to focus on the details because, at the age of 23, I did not think that I would become the person that I am now.

At the age of 23, I know exactly who I am, I know who and what I deserve, I know how to love myself, I know what I want in my life, I know that I will be broken down just to build myself back up, I know that I am out there fighting for what is right, I know how resilient I am, and I know that I will not let the plan that my 14-year-old self once had make me feel bad anymore for not being where I thought I was supposed to be.

So, cheers to my Jordan year, and like Blink-182 said, “Nobody likes you when you’re 23.”