Turns out I don’t have it all figured out
If you would’ve told me in January that my word for 2023 would be Reflect, I would’ve told you “duh, always” and “I do it all the time”. But, what I am figuring out, and what I pray is consistently for the better, is that this very task is not as straightforward as it sounds.
I have always been introspective, often more comfortable in my head than out loud. Sometimes it serves me well and sometimes it can be a fatal flaw. As I close in on turning 21, it dawns on me that another chapter of my life is on the horizon– the post-college chapter – and the nerves and stress of understanding what that could look like have been weighing me down lately. One way I have started to cope is by reflecting on where my personal growth is as I near the end of my third college year.
I thought by the time I turned 20 I would have most of my life figured out. That’s what they told you in high school, right? I used to look at college kids and admire them for how “adult” they were. They were living the dream, engulfed in independence, free to make their own choices and decide who they wanted to be. Have I been able to do that in college? Yes! But has it been as simple as it seems? Absolutely not. Nobody told you that you would be exhausted. Nobody told you that the second you would feel rooted down in a place, you would soon be going through a new season of change and life would feel transitory once more.
These are the challenges of college that we too often forget to talk about. While they are hopefully not the only things I remember of my time at UW, they do have more weight than I give them credit for. Sometimes, all I want to do is stop. Oftentimes, I forget that there is no reason I should have everything perfectly dotted out, or that it is okay to be young, dumb and twenty every now and then. I forget that I am going to make mistakes and that half of the fun of life is facing uncertainty. In the stress of midterm season or the dead of winter, those are not the things I am thinking about when I am just trying to get through the day. Yet, they are a part of what helps keep me grounded in my journey.
Having said goodbye to the teenage years almost nine months ago, I am realizing that my thought of having it all figured out by the time I was 20 was always going to be a pipe dream. Of course, there are still times I think that I will have it all established by the time I turn 25, yet I am fully anticipating the fact that this won’t be the case. And honestly, it shouldn’t be. I thought my 20s would be when “it all” happened (whatever that means), but the reality is that having that unrealistic expectation will only stress me out more.
I am starting to come around to the idea that maybe my new word for 2023 is not so much reflect as it is balance. Balance in planning and progressing towards my goals as well as honoring the moment and the place I find myself in. Balance in thinking about the future and remembering the past. Balance between trying new things and doing things that give me comfort. But most importantly, balance in giving myself room to grow and change while holding on to the core parts of who I am and who I want to be.
I don’t know what the rest of 2023 will bring. I know I am going to graduate, I know I am going to turn 21 and I know that there will be a new chapter of my life starting at the end of it. I don’t know if I feel ready, yet life is going to come at me in full swing regardless. I don’t have it all figured out, but what I am realizing is that I don’t want to. Tell my high school friends that and they would probably laugh at the idea of me saying such, yet it’s true. There is something freeing about being in your 20s; it is time I took that in full stride.