When you’re 10 years old, your twenties seem like a lifetime away. Those are the adults who are working and responsible.
When you’re 15 years old, you long to be 21. You picture a steady job, a long time boyfriend, and ultimate freedom.
When you’re 20 years old, you’re faced with the realization that everyone is honestly just winging it.
I have approximately 4 hours left of being 20 years old, and I feel unbelievably young.
It’s as if time has been passing by without me realizing it and all of a sudden, I’m finally at a standstill.
Twenty-one seemed like a lifetime away when I was in high school, yet here I am watching the clock tick onward. On my way to work the other day I made a point of walking a little slower, stopping to sit on a bench outside of the office.
As I watched the sea of people move from one end of the sidewalk to the other, I remember thinking that it was so easy to be fooled by the scene around me.
Each person looked like they had somewhere to go, something to do, and someone to talk to. It seems as though everyone has some big-office job, or a modern apartment with a small dog that’s instagram famous.
When would I join this exclusive group that has already ‘made it’?
I don’t see myself settling down soon, unlike my parents who were married by 23 and 24, nor do I know where I want to live after college. Hell, I don’t even know what I want for dinner yet.
By this age, I figured I’d know where I was headed in life, yet I can already tell that my path could lead to millions of destinations.
I realized these people I’m watching couldn’t possibly have any better idea of what life is going to throw at them than I do.
As I sat on that bench clutching my morning coffee, I was comforted by that thought: no one knows what they’re doing, not really.
Not our parents, grandparents, friends or siblings. There’s no possible way that they could. Life comes at all of us from different directions at all times, throwing everything it has to knock us off our feet. Perhaps people with more life experience have just accepted that fact, have learned to roll with the punches with grace and that is why we’re fooled into believing, that at some point you’ll have life under control.
Life was never meant to be controlled, it’s meant to be experienced.
So, raise your glass on your 21st birthday, celebrate with your friends and family. Don’t feel pressured into thinking you should have your life in perfect order at this point.
Life knows no order, so neither should you.