This is a formal apology to everyone who had to deal with me in the week leading up to my 21st birthday. I didnât realise that turning twenty one was the emotional equivalent to being launched into the void, and at 11:59PM, the day before my birthday, I was convinced that midnight would strike and I would kiss my youth goodbye. Goodbye recklessness, goodbye saying âbut Iâm only 20!â and goodbye whimsical, carefree girlhood. Hello taxes, doomscrolling on LinkedIn and stressing about saving up for a house deposit when you donât even have a full time job.
For some reason, twenty one feels different. eighteen equals freedom â clubbing, pubbing, drinking and feeling like an adult, when really youâre not. Nineteen and twenty are transitional â youâre still enjoying university, things arenât too serious yet and you are still carefree. But twenty one? Its official. Its serious. It means business. Itâs the age where nothing feels theoretical anymore â its almost time to graduate and enter the real world. Where the skills youâve acquired at university need to be put into use, after three years of becoming polished, employable and truly yourself. Thatâs why twenty one feels so scary, as you have to leave behind the years that moulded you into who you are today.
Not only this, but social media also adds to this feeling of uncertainty and fear. A quick scroll through LinkedIn and you see that your friend from secondary school has their dream internship lined up, whilst a scroll through Tik Tok shows your hometown enemyâs newfound love for attending a thirty pound pilates class after a ten hour work day. How are people doing this? Was my degree worth it? Am I being left behind? These are the thoughts that start to permeate your mind, and you see yourself starting to feel miserable and like a failure. You just want to curl up into a ball and sleep for a week straight.
But hereâs what actually happened when I turned twenty one. I didnât receive the manual titled How To Be an Adult. I didnât feel older. And I didnât wake up with sudden clarity and a full time job lined up. I still laughed too loudly, I still needed my mum, and I still felt unsure about the future. But what I realised was that I am grateful. In a miserable world where anything can happen to you at any moment, I was grateful to have seen my twenty first birthday. Not everybody gets that privilege. I was grateful for reaching this age, for the people who showed up for me, and for the version of me that I have created â even if she is still dramatic. The only thing that changed was a number, not me.
Turning twenty one does not mean losing your youth, or having a version of you expire. It doesnât mean you have no time left to figure things out. But what it does mean is this: you donât lose things from reaching this age, you gain things. You can more memories, more stories, more time and more resilience. At the end of the day, we are all just slightly older teenagers in nicer outfits, with a few more responsibilities. We are trying things out, figuring things out, and pretending we know whatâs going on. And thatâs okay. There is something powerful about being twenty one and still not knowing exactly who you are. It means you still have time to live and grow.