Turning Twenty

Oh, the age of your 20’s, known to be the “best” or “prime” years of your life. It’s the decade of the beginning of adulthood. You have everything figured out, from your career, to how many kids you’ll have, the big purchase of your first home to the day when your one true love will propose and your finger will now carry that 20-carat diamond ring. Specifically, the ring that you’ve been searching on Google and saving to your Pinterest board since you were 13. If only going into you’re 20’s came with all of these realizations of life.

What most adults seem to forget to tell the “young ones” is that being in your 20’s is one of the most stressful and confusing times you’ll experience at the beginning of adulthood. Everything to what you wear that day seems to become a question. To me, instead of being the time of realizations as Miss Kylie Jenner once said, it just became a decade of uncertainty. What the hell am I supposed to do with my life? Will I be successful? Am I supposed to have kids in the next 10 years? Is my one true love in a completely different country? Should I pack my bag, leave everything behind and move to that said country? All valid questions of course. While they can sometimes seem superficial, in certain moments, they can feel authentic and real.

When I was 13, I believed that at the age of 20 I would’ve had all my shit together. Yet, now it somehow feels like my life is more scrambled and hastened than your daily morning eggs. It’s as if I ran to the finish line instead of walking and taking the time to get there. It has come to no surprise that at the prime age of your 20’s society continues to put major expectations on the backs of young adults. Whether it’s the social pressure to be educated or the expectation for young adults to be in meaningful relationships the decade of your 20’s is much more than the harsh realities we begin to face at all times.

It is the age of taking risks, going towards your dreams, and not looking back. It has now become the time where you set yourself in situations that you can strive in. You are at the age where going in for that audition that makes you feel more nervous than ever is the start of your journey. Investing in that plane ticket to the destination that only at the age of 13 did it seem impossible seems more possible than it has ever felt before. Finding self-love and accepting your flaws doesn’t seem so scary anymore. Going to that concert and singing your heart out becomes the feeling you want to feel forever. Lastly, running to the finish line and beginning a new race sounds thrilling and exciting.

So, how did turning 20 make me feel? Well, at first, it made me feel as old as an Audrey Hepburn movie. Now, even though uncertainty, societal pressure, and questions will only continue to arise in my life. It feels like I can search for those answers, crush all the pressure and start writing the beginning of the script to my new story.