In one week, I will enter my twenties.
I will stop being a teenager, and never be one again.
I’ve been thinking about it.
In some ways, it feels crazy, maybe a bit scary. A reminder that time moves much faster than we want it to. A confirmation that I’m starting to leave my youth behind. A taste of a new decade. Growing up is scary because you’ve never done it before, until you’re doing it (as is the case with life). To turn twenty seems like a big deal to me, like an entire era of my life passed by. I’ve been a teenager for a while. Most everything I currently know about myself, I discovered it while I was a teenager. What a thought. I can’t help but wonder how much of that will stay true and constant through my twenties, and how much of it is supposed to.
In some other ways, it feels right. It feels like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. It feels like I’m there, and I’m ready. I’m not freaking out about being in my twenties because I feel like a person who should be in their twenties.
Birthdays tend to hold a lot of weight, I think we all know that. (Shoutout to all the girls who always cry on their birthday, I see you). But it doesn’t make much sense why we put so much weight on these days. Obviously, nothing changes at 00:00 the night you turn a new age, and you’re the same person you were the day before.
It’s easy to freak out about the fact that I only have one life and it gets shorter every day. This has only gotten worse since I started traveling. I have seen a million lives I could lead. The world is big and for the most part, you can do whatever you want with your life, the main caveat being you only get one.
Sometimes, I feel behind. Like I haven’t really done much up to this point, and I can’t be done being a teenager because what have I done? Where did those years go? At which point, I have to take a step back and look at my life objectively. People have done more, and people have done less, but I certainly haven’t wasted my teenage years.
I went to high school, I got good grades, I danced my entire life, I was a cheerleader, I went to parties, I knew lots of people, I went on vacations with my family and vacations with my friends, I learned how to do things myself. I worked at a salon, I learned how to be a baker, I volunteered at a library, I learned what I wanted. I fell in love, I learned I like to write, I decided to move to San Diego at eighteen for college, I drove in southern California, I befriended professors, I published my first writing piece, I met true friends, I went to bars on beaches, I became more independent. I swam in the Pacific Ocean, I went to concerts, I made important choices, I formed my own ideas about the world around me. I read so many books, I wore cool outfits, I bought a couple cars, I figured out what I care about and what I don’t. I learned how to invest money, I went to the gym, I figured out what I wanted to study. I went to a couple of universities, I listened to a lot of music, I made a blog, and I learned what I need from myself and the people I surround myself with. I went raving in Amsterdam, ate croissants in Paris, tanned topless on the cliffs of Malta, kissed strangers in Germany, ran around the Swiss Alps, pondered art in Belgium, shopped in Milan, and got to know myself.
If all that can fit into my teenage years, half of which I didn’t have a car (and was a minor) for, god only knows what I’ll have time for in my twenties. Because that time is wide open and ready to be filled with whatever I decide to fill it with.
I don’t know what my twenties will consist of. At the moment, I don’t even know what country I will be in to celebrate my birthday. But I do know that there is some encouragement in the fact that I feel like I’ve already lived a few different lives, and there is much to come.
Here’s to 20, and the next decade of possibilities, I’m ready for it.
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