I turned 20 years old on October 1st and I expected to have a sort of identity crisis about it. Yes, it is easy to make jokes like how you “defeated teen pregnancy” or you are on your second decade of your life, but I felt remarkable old this birthday. Last birthday, the one I turned 19, was about what it is was like celebrating with friends I just met in a new home in Charleston, without my parents, and on my own in college.
So what is new about this birthday? well for the first time in 10 years (half of my life at this point), I have to put a 2 in front of my age and not a 1, it also means that I am not a teenager and not in the awkward stage of still being a teenager, living with parents either in or out of college, but also being confident that I own the complete title of being an “adult” without being discriminated against also being a teenager and not knowing enough about life.
I asked a couple friends of mine at school who just recently turned 20 right before I had this anticipated big moment, and asked whether they had a huge identity crisis when they turned 20. One of my friends said yes definitley because she felt old once she hit that age and the other one said that there is no big difference between being a 19 year old and 20 year old, and how being a 20 year old did not give you new responsibilities like being a 18 or 21 year old would.
Well, it turns out I did have an identity crisis. I have conflicting emotions, still, that I should be a teenager and I can still be wild and have as much fun as I did in my teen years, but the age tells me to grow up more.
But, I am so young?!
I feel that is the pressure that age puts on young girls in particular. It tells you the amount of time you have until you cannot have children, assuming that you can, when to get married, when to finish college, and when to start your career.
But it should be at your own pace though right?
Yes, age should not and does not have that power over you, it should not tell you when to do certain things in your life. It does not give you a deadline in which it tells you to do things by a specific time. It is all up to you (and fate) when those things decide to happen for you. Let those things be and they will work itself out.