Slightly older, slightly more wise?

I am officially 26 and a few days. Some years it feels different, this year it doesn't. Well, I guess it feels a little different but not in a way I expected. I feel a change in the sense that I feel more driven...driven to grow as a person, to climb the corporate ladder, to move into the next phase of my being, to make more steps towards those bigger goals in life. Some things are becoming more clear, others more muddied.

We make these choices in life, these decisions that shape us and form our future in some ways. I look down on myself, where I am today, how I got here. It's all pretty crazy. I moved to Vermont almost 4 years ago...uprooted my entire life, left all my best friends, moved to a totally foreign place to begin the quest to "corporate stardom". I admit, I want to become something...I want my name to be recognized at least in my field of work, whatever that ends up being. I want to make a name for myself. Have I made the right choices up until this point to move towards that goal? Who knows! The way each step affects the future cannot be seen until the future is reached, then you look back and reflect on your choices, your decisions. I do not believe in coincidences...so with that in mind, I must assume that the movement you make in life is purposeful even if it doesn't seem so at the moment.

The bigger picture. I feel like I'm getting closer to seeing it, seeing what is in store, seeing what my next "big thing" is. A year of changes in my work, a year of weddings and engagements and babies, a year of love and love lost, a year of challenges, a year of family health. All these things, all in the span of one year...they are part of the building blocks of the next step, whatever it may be. Another year gone, another age reached, another lesson to be learned.