turning a quarter century

My 25th birthday is on Sat.

I was chatting online with someone recently, and I've mentioned it here, about how I haven't felt my age since I was 17 or thereabouts. Many times I have felt very young but not in a good, healthy way. Sometimes I have felt older than my years, but this is usually accompanied by a kind of exhausted weariness. After this person and I had talked for a while they said that I just sounded lazy, and that they were sorry to have let themselves spend an hour being depressed by me. That struck a nerve.

I tried to convince myself that this person was totally wrong, they don't know anything about me or my personal history or my family. But I came to realize that's only half the problem, it's a reason but not an excuse. Now that I'm 25 I have no place for excuses any more. I'd say the reason I haven't felt my age in so long is because it was right around 17 when I stopped growing, stopped progressing as a human being. I've been stagnant, stewing in a filthy psychological and emotional mire, building on the foundation of my dysfunctional childhood instead of breaking new ground. Shriveling and rotting from the inside for nearly eight years. But as comfortable and familiar as this mess I'm in is, I don't want to shrivel up and disappear. So it's decision time, a turning point if you will. I need to decide if I'm going to work my way out of this cave I'm in (stepping outside my comfort zone to seek aid) or give up and sink completely.