Scared of the Twenties

I am freshly twenty years-old. I am terrified. Allow me to tell you why…

The thing about your twenties is that there are a lot of surprises. A lot of loss, challenges, failure, and most of all expectations. Things you know to expect but really don’t expect them to happen to you. You may think you are doing everything right and nothing will slap you in the face. Wrong. 

People tell you to enjoy your twenties but to me that is a big expectation people put on you. I am lucky enough to have an extremely honest mother to keep me in line. And three sisters whose mistakes I can learn from. I have that in my back pocket. I also have my lovely blind optimism. With blind optimism comes being blindsided. With that being said, I do have the mentality that I know I will fail but I am utterly devastated and shocked when it happens. 

You lose friends and relationships you never thought you’d lose. You make friends. Sometimes you learn quickly or a little too late that those “friends” are not so good. You start to slowly weed out the family members that doubt you and don’t trust you. You are able to weed out the friends and family members that only care about you when they see you’re doing good and wonder if they can use that to their advantage. You learn about things around and a lot of things about yourself. You come to many conclusions about many things and sometimes those conclusions break your heart. And in the middle of all that you’ll have people tell you to enjoy your twenties.

How can I enjoy a time in my life where my heart is breaking constantly? Yes, you can find beauty in a broken heart. The healing process can be lengthy though. I am the type of person who loves hard and very quickly. I sometimes feel as though I give more love than I receive. Your twenties are a part of finding what and who you love. 

I am scared of my twenties because I am scared to lose my sense of imagination and my inner child. I’m scared of being called a failure after one miniscule mistake. The genuine good guys your age are sparse. And I am most scared of failing because of the pressure from people that have such high expectations for me. I already have expectations for myself that are unreasonable and far too high for a single person. I don’t need someone else to burden me with their expectations they have for me. 

I’m scared of thinking my dream job is too much for me when I get pushed down too many times. Or the thought of “am I doing this all wrong?” or “is this career really the one for me?” and it is. But do I really know that? It’s only something I have had my mind set on since I was nine. Then there’s people thinking they know what’s best for you. And it’s always those that do not truly know you. In my head, the only person that can tell me what they think is best for me (because they’re always right) is my mother. 

They say “enjoy your twenties, have fun, make memories, make mistakes,” well, if I make those mistakes you’ll tell me what a failure I am. It’s them telling you to not let the words get to you. But it’s their words. Trying your absolute best to not let people’s opinions of you get to you. Pushing through the hurricane of your own mind without any shelter. Words of others swarming your mind like a bunch of feral butterflies. It’s hard. And this is only the beginning. 

This will be the wildest rodeo of my life. That’s why I’m scared. But, I’m ready for it.

With all that being said, I want to leave you all with a quote.

You are not the opinion of someone who doesn’t know you. – Taylor Swift.

Until next time,

ES