25 is a moment. It took me quite a few moons to get to this age.
This is the first birthday that I’ve actually looked forward to, felt excited about, etc. It takes too much energy to be someone actively against birthdays and I don’t naturally possess enough to be someone for them, so I generally land right smack in the middle of energetic indifference. I just have this feeling about 25. That sounds like something everyone this age says but I really mean it!
Piece by piece, the years have all been falling into place to make me into this person that I have somehow managed to personify. Things that I want for my life float into my brain and there’s not a single one of them that I feel I can’t do, or have to wait to make happen. If I truly, madly, deeply want something… I’m at a stage of existence now where I can very well get it. Do you know what that feels like!? It’s terrifying! And amazing!
At 23 we got random and weird and at 24 we learned some lessons. This year I wanted to share some of those rest-of-my-life wants. Spoiler Alert: it’s a great many of them. 25 to be exact. This is basically dissertation-level long so feel free to just skim the bold headers.
1. To watch every movie Sandra Bullock has ever made, in order.
Another revolution around the sun and this still hasn’t happened! How long have I been telling you all that this will happen? Too long. Now I’m hedging my bets. Eventually, in my life, I will achieve this feat. The list stands at well over 40 films and it’s only going to keep growing so whenever you see a new release, please check in on my progress. In case you somehow weren’t aware of this supremely fun fact about me: I love Sandra Bullock.
2. To become a whiskelier.
A whisk(e)y sommelier is not a thing because by definition a sommelier is a wine steward, but I want to become one anyway. I’m slowly but surely building a palate for whiskey, whisky, and scotch. I’d like to be able to say that it’s certified.
3. To move abroad.
Some people grow up in a place that they know they’ll always want to call home. Some struggle to find settlement and jump from city to city in remarkably short periods of time. I happen to envy the former and sympathize with the latter, but I also happen to have found the general corner of the earth that makes me feel unlike anywhere else. It’s a place I so desperately hope to call home as my honest to goodness, true heart place for the rest of my existence. If I’m not there in 2 years, please reach out and heckle me as to why. I hope I can give you a good reason.
4. To walk a runway.
In front of absolutely no one, preferably. It just always looks so fun! To have some M83 music videos projected on a massive screen behind you and strut your way to a fan favorite dance move finish in obscenely over-decorous formal wear.
5. To sink onto my hands and knees, dig my fingers deep into the mud, and scream as hard as I can.
There’s this scene in the movie ‘Testament of Youth’ in which the main character, Vera, runs up a hill, falls to her knees, digs her hands into the mud, and just sobs her heart open. Have you ever felt so emotionally compromised that you just couldn’t find a satisfying outlet? Maybe due to a specific life event or maybe due to many. The years build and build and eventually it’s overwhelming. Sometimes I wonder what it might be like to emotionally reset, to cleanse. To not worry about someone hearing you or seeing you, not worry about anything resembling an aftermath. Not only in heartbreak or pain, but in happiness and excitement. A compound of every emotion. Just animalistically exhausting it all out of yourself. Imagine what that feels like.
6. To find my Grandmother Willow.
There is something so mystical and magical about trees and if they had their own religion all to themselves I’d likely be the first to convert. Trees the world over possess this spiritual touch to the soul, a brush of the heart to the humans who’ve lost their way in returning it. I fully believe that there’s a Grandmother Willow out there, waiting for me to stumble upon it and find a confidant. You’ll know when I’ve found it because you’ll never hear from me again. I’ll spend the rest of my existence there beside it.
7. To visit Alaska.
Fun Fact #1701: I LOVE ALASKA. This all began with a weird obsession that I developed over Alaskan television shows. Alaska: The Last Frontier, Alaska State Troopers, Alaskan Bush People, Ice Road Truckers, etc. I cannot predict what my reaction will be when some day I eventually visit this place but I can only hope that the rest of the world is prepared for it.
8. To find the final pieces of my pack.
Live your life by the wolves. When I watch television shows or movies where there’s a strong group of friends who’ve been together like a family, I think to myself how some day I hope to settle in a place where I can have that around me. The pieces of my pack who have known me through all of the goods and the uglies, who can call me in the middle of the night and know that no matter what happened I’ll be on my way to the airport in under 15 minutes to find them, who I can have round on holidays, who treat me as if we shared the same blood in our veins.
9. To dip myself in the Atlantic every Christmas Eve until I die.
This was a tradition I started with myself approximately 3 Christmas’ ago. I’ll be honest, the past few years I’ve woken up in absolutely no mood whatsoever to do it. But I get myself out of bed, I hype up on the drive to the beach, and as soon as I run into that salt water all hesitations disappear. This is genuinely a shock to the system, a defibrillator for the non-threatened living. The Atlantic is another piece of the lifeforce puzzle for me and I invite anyone who would like to try it to join me next 12/24.
10. To write a novel.
A fully finished, contentedly drafted version of a novel. It’s a secret to no one that I love to write. Most days I regret not taking the academia route and becoming a poor, starving writer living out of a 1-room apartment in Soho, feeding a mysterious cat leftover pizza crust when it comes to visit on my fire escape. For mostly myself but partly for others, I’d love to just be able to extract a full story from the hoards that swim up there in the ventricles of my brain. And better yet, to put it down in the way I know in my heart and soul that I can.
11. To go to Russia and channel my inner Lev.
Blame the birth of this random obsession on the mesmerizing writing style of Count Tolstoy in “Anna Karenina,” then allocate some more to Armie Hammer and Nikolai Gogol. Add a dash of the Napoleonic Muscovites and you’ve got yourself quite a few threads sewn into whatever it is that’s made me so interested in Russia. My fear with most places in this world is that some day humankind will ruin them. I’d like to see the beauty of the Russia that dear Lev wrote so wonderfully about before I can’t.
12. To cultivate a garden.
Gardening is a passion that I can’t say I possess any skill for, but I have a great deal of interest in it and that’s what matters! Some day I’d like to build a massive garden teeming with veggies, fruits, trees, flowers, and general shrubbery of vast array.
13. To fall in love whenever I can.
A natural follow-up to planting lavender for luck. There’s a Great Love out there for all of us and I’d very much maybe I think like to find mine. I tend to not let myself near this within a 24,901 mile circumference but maybe some time I’ll give it a try. Whoever it is that gets stuck with me is gonna need quite a few new pairs of dancing shoes.
14. To see a ghostie.
This is and was and also still is one of my biggest fears. I 1,000% believe in ghosts and ghouls and spirits and sprites and whatever else you might want to term them. I believe that humans are not the only ones wandering around this planet. There have been several moments when I’ve gotten That Feeling but I’ll usually panic beg to see nothing, to experience nothing, to fall into a dreamless slumber and wake in the daylight and deal with nothing. But it’s a fascination, and some day I’d like to encounter something, or someone.
15. To overcome my fear of flying.
People continually scoff at me when I tell them that I am terrified of flying. Yes, it is something I do fairly frequently for my chosen career. Yes, I’ve also done it fairly frequently for my chosen leisure activities. Doesn’t mean that I don’t have a complete breakdown every time we encounter the slightest teeny tiny bump. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: some day I’ll learn to fly.
16. To learn the drums (only for very specific songs).
I want. To be. Dave Grohl. Have no fear, I’m not running off to become a rock and roll drummer in a Devo cover band (yet). It’s just that when listening to the music that I love, the drums are always the instrument that resonate the most with me (weak at best, I tried). There’s a handful of songs I’d like to progress from steering wheel slamming to kick drum stomping.
17. To get published.
By something with a little more reputational integrity than talesofcasstastrophe.com. Now, allow me to comment that I do in fact consider this as very much different from writing a novel. I have every faith in my abilities to write a novel in my lifetime. In fact, if we’re being really honest, I think I could muster up enough for half a dozen but let’s not expect too much from ourselves, shall we? Becoming published is something else altogether. I think it would be really cool to some day write an article or a short fiction for my dream publication The New Yorker, or even a 300 word book review for the local Daily News. Let’s go for gold. Both a published novel (to be picked up at your local brick and mortar bookstore, please) and a byline.
18. To learn how to fix my anxiety.
Many and much could be said on this matter, maybe some day I’ll give it a better story telling. It boils down to generalized anxiety, many people around the earth have it whether they admit it, know it, or not. I’d like to find out all the ways to cope and assuage and ultimately fix mine for the sake of myself.
19. To spend a night under the Northern Hemisphere stars.
Ursas Major and Minor. Draco. Andromeda. Cassiopeia. I’ve never really seen a night sky. I’ve always been in places with a decent amount of light pollution and some day, I want to spend an eve in awe and wonder with my favorite version of the midnight hemisphere.
20. To amass a squad of little ones.
I toyed with replacing the . with a ? but for consistency’s sake I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Some time, in my life, I think that I want to have children? I always loved the idea of a home packed to bursting with the energy of kiddos running up and down the walls. I adore the idea of a big family, there for each other through every possible stage of humanity. As I get a little older, I realize just how difficult it is for me to picture the realities of this life. What it means to actually make it happen. But either way the love story goes, children will likely maybe could possibly come into play.
21. To rock and roll my way across America.
Partly inspired by items on my bucket list such as ‘drive Route 66 while listening to ‘Route 66” and partly inspired by Sonic Highways (again, Dave Grohl is my icon). Rock and roll is my most favorite thing about this country, and if #3 comes true then my time to experience it is drawing to a close. There are so many amazing, musically historical places. Underground Seattle, Chicago (Chicago!), the Hall of Fame in Cincinnati, Muscle Shoals, any and every hole in the wall across all of Tennessee.
22. To live in a home that is Broadway-level secluded.
Singing in the shower is a favorite pastime of mine. Relatable. However, because I’ve only ever lived in apartment buildings with uncomfortably close proximity to neighbors, I tend to sing very quietly in aforementioned shower. Which is not nearly as fun an experience as it could be! I want a place where I can crank the stereo to eardrum-bursting levels and really go for that “Phantom of the Opera” scale without fear of my neighbors broomstick-busting their ceilings.
23. To chase a storm.
In case you haven’t caught on by this point, pretty much everything I want to do in my life is unoriginal. This particular item is inspired by, you guessed it, you saw it coming: “Twister.” SUCH an incredible movie! I’d very much like to give this a try and end up cowering in a ditch, thinking this is the moment when I die, only to come out on the other side with my white tank-top moderately muddied.
24. To read every book I could ever possibly want to.
This one is a concession. I’d like to be Bill Nighy in “About Time” and just keep jumping back and forth to read millions and billions of books, but odds aren’t in my favor. This year I’ll take a list a little more seriously. I won’t just add things to my To Read on Goodreads and let them sit there for years, unattended. (If you believed that for one single second you are joking yourself.)
25. To want for nothing.
Self explanatory. To make it through my life doing and having and seeing and being all the things I could ever possibly want to.
Consider this my list of Casstastrophes on deck. I’ll do my best to update it as the years go on, so you can check back from your forearm-embedded smart screens in 2043 and see how cool and rad and awesome I always told you I was going to be.
In all seriousness, thank you from the every atom of my heart for being part of 25 with me. I’m very happy to be here.
