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⚡️ couldn’t wait to turn 15, then you blink and it’s been 10 years

(long, contemplative caption ahead)

I turned 25 four weeks ago and have spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to grow older. birthdays are a bittersweet milestone for many, and mine falls five days after my sister’s death anniversary, so there’s long been a complex mix of grief and gratitude around every solar return I celebrate. throw in a lot of big feelings about the person I was at 15—bright, scared, romantic, naive, and unable to fathom an existence into adulthood—and an (admittedly unhealthy) dash of uncertainty about what the future holds from me and what I want from it, and I’m left with only a few things I know for sure:

- aging is a blessing. not everyone gets to. I hope to stop taking that blessing for granted because dear lord does time seem to be going by faster and faster

- I joke a lot about your 20s being a decade of reparenting yourself, but really I think that’s a lifelong job. I find myself holding every younger version of myself more tightly with each passing year, running constantly into the same core struggles and insecurities that all those younger selves were haunted by and hoping to love them now the way they needed then, even if it’s still hard to do the same for myself in the present day. with any luck, a future me will desire to give that same love to our 25-year-old self

- 15-year-old hillary would think 25-year-old hillary is insanely fucking cool—much cooler than I give myself credit for—and be proud of all the fun, interesting, and hard things we’ve done in the last decade

- so much of me is who I’ve always been. amidst all of the requisite mid-20s identity crises, I’ve found a lot of delight in reconnecting with myself through my hobbies, interests, and passions. no matter how lost I feel, I can always find an anchor back to myself

- lorde was a little too loud when she sang, “everybody wants the best for ya, but you gotta want it for yourself,” but maybe I needed to be reminded of that
 
here’s to being a month into feeling unsure about aging and if I’m doing it right, to holding on to the belief that things will work out anyway. here’s to 25!
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Still mentally recovering from Bummeroo 2025, but I couldn’t be more grateful for the people I got to do it with 🔆🧡🥹🧅

I love these shots, most taken by my talented friend @trystens with @dypproductions 🎞️
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