Being In Your Twenties
ByFour months into this 20 something letter project and I am still working my way through the idea of what it means to be in your twenties. What is this decade that I have found myself surrounded in? What things should I be working on? How much should I really know? None of which I have the answers to. I think that is ok. I think that I shouldn’t have these answers. Did you hear that? “I think.”
Recently the New York Times wrote an amazing article detailing the complexities of being in your twenties. They took the complexities that I feel and put them into fancy psychological words. It was a truly fascinating article but it left me with little direction of what my focus should be right now.
In other decades things are very organized. There are rules lined out to how it is supposed to work. It is understood that in highschool your parents will give you a curfew and you will probably break it because you are busy driving around playing music too loud. You will experience a lot of “firsts” and probably get caught drinking a time or two. (or maybe that was just me). But you know that highschool is going to someday end and you prepare yourself for that. And then you move on to college. There are clear understandings that you are going to study really hard and learn how to do a perfect keg stand. (I am assuming this is understood logic..) But you know that college will end and eventually you will be thrown into the real world.
But then you find yourself in this place. Your twenties. There is little direction given to what you are supposed to do and how you are supposed to do it. In fact, it is really hard to even know when the fun, carefree, hang with friends and drink beer in small town bars will end and the adulthood will begin. Filled with houses and husbands and babies. There are no rules about this and everyone does it differently.
There seems to be distinct choices you make in your twenties. Some girls go off and get married and buy houses. Some go back packing in Europe and grow their hair out. Others focus on their career and some refuse to grow up.
There are stereo typical 20 year old girls and then there is me. And I don’t find myself in any of these groups. I have a child and a house and I am partially settled. I have a good job that I love but I am very much a family girl. I have no interest in getting married anytime soon. Like really, no. interest. I dont want to go backpacking through Europe. I want to take parts and pieces from these different lifestyles and build something that fits me. Something that is me. Something that I can live.
But sometimes I get caught up in the details. What I should be doing and what I am not doing. What I could do and what I don’t care to do.
But I am twenty-three.
Related posts:
I don’t mean this to sound scary at all:
I’m about to turn 33 and it’s exactly the same.
But! I like to think that just means that there are tons of possibilities still. Right?
Cass-Im with you!
I am just me. Not a “typical” 20 something. even though im higher into them than you. I have Camble and I am almost done with school . I too have no desire to be married. sometimes I wonder if I ever will….orif I am destined to be a smart, single, independant woman!!
love you baby!
Sometimes it is difficult to know how goal-oriented we should be but at the same time living in the moment, not worrying too much about the future. It is easy to get anxious about the latter, hoping and praying that you are doing everything right in the details now so that what is supposed to happen will happen for your life. But I think living in the present moment gives one so much more peace and direction to the soul than we give it credit for, because we can’t see the big picture now but are buildling the puzzle one piece at a time, the only way it is possible to put it together…..