It’s about time I Explained Post Twenty-five.

If you’re reading this blog your either:

1. My friends and family. (Thanks fam!)
2. A stranger who read another one of my posts and stayed around for more.
3. Or you follow me on social media, finally gave into all of my persistent posting, and clicked the “link in bio.” (if you’re that person, go you!)

With that being said, welcome! Its so cool to see human connection form over the phrase “No way! Me too!” I feel like this is a great time to explain just how this blog came about.

I guess to tell this story I have to go back probably to high school. My junior year of high school, I fell in love with writing. I had always been an avid reader but I never considered myself a good enough writer. In all honesty, I never even considered anything other than a math and science driven career. I had the natural inclination to want to solve puzzles. Math & science were supposedly the hardest puzzles to solve. It had been engrained in me: the greatest honor I could ever attain was to be a doctor or prominent lawyer. I don’t blame my family for their way of thinking; most immigrant families thought that way. Regardless, when I signed up for my AP Language and Composition class, it was for the sole purpose of boosting my GPA and my ego.

What I thought was going to be an easy A, turned out to be one of the most difficult classes of my life and my first C+. I was introduced to a world of nuanced puzzles only available to the reader who dared to slow down enough to catch them. I was pushed to think outside my 2+2, formulaic training and was incessantly prodded to put words to the poorly formed ideas in my head. Although my parents didn’t quite see my new found pride in my C letter grace as revolutionary as I did, by the end of the year I fell in love with writing (and pulled my grade up to a B. Work in progress y’all). To spare you the details I may one day disclose, from that moment I began to nurture my newfound zeal for writing and continued over the next several years.

Fast forward, after years of learning and growing, I found myself in a rut. (I wont go into detail because I wrote about it in a previous post. Check it out!) After crawling out of a very long quarter-life crisis, I, in true Sophie fashion, began to reflect. One of the things that had always nagged at my soul was the lack of support for my age group in my community or online. (I was simply trying to find myself and my passion for life; no big deal.)

The thing is, when I was a young teenager in high school freely discovering parts of who I was, I had an endless amount of resources; the world was my oyster and everyone looked to me expectantly.  Unfortunately, I soon realized America’s obsession with youth between 18-24, not only permeated my outer circles, but seeped into the church as well. At twenty-five, those once eager supporters turned into subtle critics. I realized that I had bought into the lie that life is no longer worth chasing, worth forming, worth getting your hands dirty, after a certain age.  It was time to settle down and since I was nowhere near “settling down,” I was a failure.

And so rather than sit in bitterness, mad at the world for not understanding me, I decided to use the talent that 17-year-old me discovered, to create a space for people over twenty-five to find comfort, support, and to discover what makes their heart beat.

And that’s what this blog is.

It’s not a place to shame or exclude (even those younger than 25. Im a huge supporter of investing in the next generation). 25 was my number, but this can happen to anyone who feels discouraged. My prayer is that in some way, if you find yourself struggling to bounce back after reality has knocked you out, that this would be the place where you begin to get back up. If you find yourself overflowing with ideas that you can’t see coming to fruition, that you would lay those dreams down here, and find the support to try it anyway. If you find yourself scared out of your mind to take that first step, I pray that this would be the place where you find the courage to leap while scared.

I told one of my good friends, Janelle (who you may see writing on this blog!), about this idea one day in her kitchen with her two year old laughing and running around in the background. We are only months apart in age and although from the outside, our lives look completely different, we both resonated with the message: time is never up.

“You’re glowing.”

“I haven’t seen you like this in a long time,” she said.

“Yeah… I know.”

So as I take my leap, I encourage you, not to follow me, but to join me.

Lets jump.