I'm 27!

On December 1st, I turned 27, which feels absolutely surreal.

If you had asked 17-year-old me what 27 would look like, I would’ve said something like,

“Traveling…lawyer-ing…definitely not falling asleep at 8:30 PM.”

But here we are.

Twenty-seven years old, and some mornings my body wakes up like it’s lived nine lifetimes.

It’s funny, on paper, I’m in my twenties. But in my bones? My nerves? My thalamus?

Eighty-five. Easily.

Living in a body that’s been through a war few people see

Most 27-year-olds don’t think about brain bleeds or angiograms or tone or paralysis. They don’t have a favorite MRI machine. They don’t schedule life around how much energy their right hand has on a Tuesday.

But my twenties have looked different.

My AVM journey started when I was a senior in high school, fell four feet, hit my head, and brushed it off like kids do. The next day, my right side went numb.

Cue the hospitals. Cue the scans. Cue the phrase no teenager expects to hear:

“You have an arteriovenous malformation in your brain and three aneurysms.

...BUT, we can't remove them, it's too dangerous."

Fast forward to the rupture years later, my stroke, the day everything changed. The day the old me died quietly, and the new me was born without instructions.

Now here I am, 27 years old with:

• a partially paralyzed right hand that sometimes acts like a teenager

• tone in my muscles that has a mind of its own

• a brain that has literally been operated on

• a thalamus that still has a little AVM hanging out

• and a schedule full of follow-ups and healing

So yes. Twenty-seven going on eighty-five.

And yet…I’m grateful. Truly.

Birthdays hit differently now. Every year feels like something I earned, not something that just arrives.

I look at 27 and think:

• I survived something that kills people in seconds.

• I relearned things adults haven’t thought about since kindergarten.

• I left the hospital unable to move half my body.

• My brain had a literal explosion — and I still laugh, create, love, and live.

I miss the “old me,” but I honor who I am now

I won’t lie, there are days I miss her.

The girl who trusted her body. Who could walk without thinking. Who didn’t have to prepare mentally just to climb into a car. Who didn’t pace her energy like a rare currency.

But I also love this version of me. She’s tougher. She’s empathetic. She’s been rebuilt from the inside out.

She knows what matters now. She knows how quickly life can change. She doesn’t take things for granted. Not a step, not a word, not a laugh.

27 is weird, beautiful, and heavy, but it’s mine

So here I am, walking into 27:

• a little stiff

• a little tired

• but also proud, grateful, and awake to life in a way I never was before.

If this is 27, I’ll take it.

Even if it feels like 85 on the inside. Even if my body is a little crunchy. Even if my brain is still healing in the background.

I’m here. I’m alive. I’m growing older, something I don’t take lightly anymore.

Here’s to year 27.

To healing, humor, softness, and strength. To living life at the pace my body allows.

And to hoping that maybe, just maybe, 28 feels a little less like 85.