In a few days, I will be 21 years old. To someone older, my life has barely started. To me, though, reality is beginning to crash down.
When I was younger, 21 was the age that signified true adulthood. I knew 18 was the age of legal adulthood, but I secretly knew the real grown-ups were the ones in their 20s. Now that I am one of those twenty-somethings, I can confirm I feel nothing like a grown-up.
I am reaching the age where society has decided I should start “figuring it out” and getting my life together. People have begun to ask what my plan is after graduation or if I am “seriously” dating anyone. Family photo albums show my grandparents getting married at the age of 21. I see 21-year-old TikTok influencers buying houses. A couple of people who I went to high school with are already having babies.
My family has always preached that your 20s are when you find your forever partner, your forever job and settle down to start the rest of your life. Perhaps they are trying to get me excited for what is to come; however, the thought that every choice I make could last forever haunts me.
What I wanted in high school is different from what I wanted freshman year of college, which is different from what I want now. How could I possibly choose one path and commit to it forever when I know my mind could change again at any moment?
Your 20s are not the time to be making forever decisions — they are a time to be making mistakes. Our brains are still developing until the age of 25, so we should allow ourselves the freedom to let our identities and decisions develop along with it.
Even though my family and society argue that I should end this reckless self-discovery and start building a real, routinely life, I refuse to make any permanent decisions right now. As much as that would stress them out, it excites me. To me, your 20s are not when your life is decided, they are when your life can truly start.
It can be so difficult to know who you are in your teen years. There are so many emotions, so much drama and so many people telling you how to act or who to be. Your 20s, aside from bringing hormone stabilization, give you a chance to meet yourself fully.
As you take on new opportunities and challenges, more of your personality will be revealed. When life throws you curveballs, you will find that you can handle them with grace you did not realize you had.
I have been caught up in friend drama and roommate issues recently. My non-confrontational teenage self would have taken this as an opportunity to gossip and avoid the problem. My twenty-year-old self, though, chose to deal with the problem head-on by communicating my feelings and having a difficult conversation.
As your self-confidence grows and you put yourself out there more, you may end up enjoying something you never could have fathomed liking in the past. My teenage self, ashamedly, was a people pleaser, but once I turned 20 years old, I refused to do that anymore.
For the first few months of 2024, I studied abroad in France with a group of people I had never met before. Instead of adjusting my personality to their liking, I decided to simply be myself — I have never connected with a group of people so fast.
I had always considered myself an independent introvert but, after meeting this group, I realized that might not be who I am anymore. My 20s brought out a new, social side of me that, beforehand, I didn’t know existed.
Your twenties are for trying. This should be a decade of discovering, failing, having fun, making mistakes, experiencing and defining what you want your life to be. This is the perfect time to figure yourself out — everything is a new opportunity, and nothing is set in stone.
Younger generations, like mine, have been strongly pushing against the idea that one must settle down in their 20s. We are embracing the concept of finding ourselves and taking our sweet time to do so. Life is long, and we know that we are bound to change our minds about what we want and who we are.
The pressure of starting to make our forever decisions is getting heavier, but it only exists as long as we give in to it. Our parents and grandparents may have gotten married or bought their first houses at the age of 21, but that does not mean we have to follow suit.
To rush into something because that’s how everybody else did it is the worst way to live your life. This is the easiest way to make a decision that you will regret. Letting go of outdated, rigid ideas surrounding your 20s makes the thought of living them much easier to bear.
Despite the scary, serious age that I am turning, I am looking at it optimistically. I am excited to meet myself in my 20s. I cannot wait to see where my life will take me and who I will become.