The first year I ever cried on my birthday was on my 16th. I wasn’t prepared for the feeling of ageing. For reasons still unknown to me, I felt tangibly older on my 16th birthday. Obviously, I didn’t physically age. I didn’t have any lines or wrinkles on my face, but something inside felt different. I had mentally aged and felt the most uncomfortable with it. Long were the days I awoke excited for my birthday celebrations.
Fast forward six years, I am cruising in my early twenties and I am no more comfortable with my age as I was as a melancholic 16-year-old.
I’m not afraid of getting old, but I’m slightly disturbed by it.
From a very young age, I remember being so aware of adult problems – finances, raising a family, cooking, careers. I was also very aware of the adult things I did want when I grew up like a husband, a big house, and a family. But I can’t have one part of being an adult without the other. All my hopes and dreams for the future are also intertwined with the struggles of life I hope to prolong as long as I possibly can.
As I’ve entered my 20s, I feel so much closer to these adult problems than ever before.
I have never been okay with getting older and a massive part of that stems from my disdain of life changes. From a young age, my heart was plagued with the comfort of nostalgia and yearning for things of the past. No matter how mundane the memory may be, I’m in the habit of capturing the memory as if it is wrapped up in the most beautiful wrapping paper and adorned in the prettiest bow.
I’m knocking on graduation’s door, so the career chapter of my life couldn’t be closer. People I went to school with vary from having children to getting married to being career people and students who live at home like me. There’s no uniform to life when you’re in your 20s. Everyone is doing something different.
A certain type of loneliness took a seat in my heart when I entered my twenties and has stuck around thus far. There is something overwhelmingly lonely and isolating about not knowing exactly where you should stand in the world.
When you’re in grade school, you’re supposed to just be a kid. When you’re in high school, you’re expected to be young, moody and stupid. When you enter university, you feel the need to figure it all out by the end. I’m now at the end and I definitely don’t have it all figured out.
I don’t see my friends as much as I did in high school. Some have moved while in other cases, life is just busy. As glum as it sounds, friendships lose that youthful spark when you grow up. I notice friendships do deepen and solidify as I get older, with newfound depth and stability, but they come in exchange of that raw and uncomplicated energy that friendships have when you’re young.
The dating experience as a gen Z in their 20s is definitely an experience. In theory, it’s easier than ever to find someone, between dating apps and social media, but in practice, it’s far more nuanced and anything but simple. It feels as if everyone’s intentions are shielded by a veil of ambiguity and no one really knows what they want.
I think being in my 20s marks the point in my life where I had to start thinking for myself. I can no longer rely on people the same way I did. My decisions affect me and more importantly, my consequences impact me alone. My twenties demands a level of independence and self-reliance that took me by surprise. This demand shook every part of my life.
It’s not talked about enough how entangled adulthood is to independence. Even with a life full of people, there’s certain parts of life that can only be done alone. We can’t hinge on others the way we once did. This introduced a loneliness I didn’t anticipate. As if I was my 16-year-old self once again, I felt the same blinding pressure of mentally ageing.
As lonely as this transition is, it’s equally as liberating. It seems to be in our twenties that we’re able to step into the entire space of who we are. It’s a place where discovery becomes attainment. A new meaning to growing pains.