> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://sincerelyskylar.co/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # i choose to live - URL: https://sincerelyskylar.co/i-choose-to-live/ - Published: 2026-07-15T18:17:29.000Z - Updated: 2026-07-15T18:36:48.000Z - Author: Skylar Barron - Tags: Essays Aging is a mindset — at least that’s what I’ve decided. And let me tell you how I’ve reached this conclusion. My husband and I were sitting on the couch watching an episode of *Married at First Sight.* Yes, we love our reality shows. In this specific episode, there were three younger couples and two older couples who had just gotten married, and it was the night after their weddings. All but one of the couples immediately went up to their hotel room and got ready for bed. The one couple who did not go to their hotel room decided to sit by the pool and talk. And then they decided they wanted to celebrate because hey, they just got married! So, the wife in her wedding dress and the husband in his tux took a running start and jumped into the pool. They swam and splashed and hugged and kissed. They were enjoying life. They were *creating* joy. And they were the oldest couple on the show — 63 and 59, respectively. Yet somehow, they seemed like the youngest — the most full of life. How was it possible that these people, who had three decades on me, seemed to be having more fun?! This jarred me. It was like someone had grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking. ***Wake up! Wake up and live!*** I realized then that I was a *go to bed* person. And I hated that. I wanted to be a person who stayed up, celebrated, and jumped in the pool in my wedding dress! So why wasn't I? All I had to do was make the decision to change — I had to get the running start, and leap into the pool! For a few years now, life has felt very domesticated. Predictable. Somehow, I had settled into the mindset of a person whose life of adventure and fun was behind them. For context, my husband and I work East Coast hours on the West Coast, which means we wake up quite early, work all day, go to the gym at 3pm, come home, have an early bird dinner at 5pm, and are in bed by 9pm. It’s a healthy lifestyle, sure. We get good sleep, we take good care of ourselves, but we are 26 years old!!! ***WHAT ARE WE DOING!!!???*** This is the prime of our lives! This is the time we should look back on in disbelief — can you believe we stayed up all night to see our favorite artist perform? Remember when we woke up at 3am for that hike that changed our lives? How about when we took a redeye and traveled for 24 hours straight before we finally got to our destination? That’s the type of life we should be living — *could* be living. We just needed to shift our mindsets. We needed to focus on joy. On the memories. Not on the logistics, practicality, or sensibility. Because surely, it makes poor sense to travel for an entire day, to ruin your REM sleep and hike six miles at 3am, to go to a concert on a work day — but where’s the fun in practicality? We have our entire lives to settle down, to be practical, to be sensible. But we also have our entire lives — to live. We just have to make that choice. And that’s what we will do. Never again will we be in our twenties. In the best shape of our lives, at the top of our game. So we owe it to ourselves to take full advantage. I don’t want to look back, years from now, full of regret. Wishing that I had lived life more fully. Created more joy. Been less practical. So it has become my mission, for the rest of this year, and all the years to come, to live. To create joy. To make memories and write stories — stories we will tell our children, stories we will hyperbolize and dramatize, stories we will downplay because the details belong to us, and only us. I have shifted my mindset to that of a woman in her twenties — because that's what I am! And I've made plans to prove it to myself. This week, my husband and I are going on a sunrise hike. We are camping in the bed of our truck and waking up at 3am to hike six miles. Because we can! And how lucky are we to be able to do such a thing? We booked tickets to go to a concert — on a work night!! And yes, we will be tired the next day, but oh, how wonderful it will be to have our throats sore from singing all our favorite songs. We will travel at least three more times this year. And yes, we could stay home and put that money away for a house. We could budget ourselves to death, we could. ***Or we could live!*** And boy, do I want to live. So I ask you, dear reader, are you going to jump into the pool? ### *Sincerely,* ### *Skylar*