I was never big on birthdays, in fact, I’ve hated my birthday for a while now. Each birthday, when the number officially increases and I realize I’ve lived an entire year since my last, I get really sad about getting older. Time seems to be going so much faster since high school. In a few months, I’ll be turning 20. I’ve been feeling very anxious about this from the second I turned 19. For me, turning 18 or 21 never felt as important as 20. I feel a sort of impending doom of my teenage years coming to an end, and not knowing how to deal with that and be okay with it. It feels like my youth is over, and for some reason, I keep thinking that 20 means I need to have it all together, and if I don’t then I’m not “adulting” correctly.
I know I’m not alone in this feeling that many women face when turning 20, like it’s a death sentence for our girlhood. I’m trying to combat this anxiety by recognizing that my 20s should be something I’m excited for, to begin new chapters of my life instead of thinking about the endings of others.
Just because I’m saying goodbye to my teenage years doesn’t mean I have to become something else in order to fit the number 20. When you think about it, we are all getting older each day, little by little, and growing in ways we don’t even realize right away. When I think about who I was at 16, a year ago, or even a month ago, I realize how much I am constantly changing and growing. I’m trying to look at my 20s as a time to not have it all figured out, because what does that really mean anyway? I will never have “it all” figured out, there will always be obstacles I face and opportunities for personal growth.
I hope my 20s are a time to achieve certain dreams and goals I had as a young girl. I dreamed about traveling the world, about a future career in writing, about going out and doing all the things I wished I could do right then as a teenager, who couldn’t escape the mundane routines of school and my part-time jobs.
Turning 20 is scary for me. Yet, it also presents itself as an opportunity to make my younger self proud. It helps to picture going back in time to tell the young girl I used to be about everything I’m doing to get her excited on her birthdays rather than sad. For any girl in the same boat as me, I encourage you to think about your 20s as just that, an opportunity to become someone your younger self would look up to and be proud of.