Turning 20 felt like a loud unignorable shift. Not a joyous celebration (no pun intended), not the overwhelming transformation I expected (a bit unrealistic of me but hey, I had plans and I was determined to put in the work), just deeper noticing.
Since the last December 24th, life has broken me in ways I was not prepared for.
I do not say that dramatically, I say it because it is true. This age did not come with clarity. It came with loss, with exhaustion that feels like it lives in my bones. It came with questions that loop endlessly in my mind and an ache I cannot name but carry every single day. It has not been gentle, certain or rhythmic and I’m not even sure that the difficulty has been necessary.
Still, I’ve learned a few things, or I have always known them but life just emphasised them. Not in a neat, “I have figured it out” way. More in the way that you learn to walk barefoot on glass – slowly, shakily, knowing it might hurt, but needing to move anyway. I know what you might be thinking: why would one walk barefoot on glass? Exactly!
Here are 20 things I have learned, endured or simply witnessed as I navigate what it means to be 20 and alive:
1. You don’t need to turn your life into a lesson right away.
Some things just hurt, let them. Some things are disappointing and discouraging, some are beautiful and excellent and sometimes, there is nothing for you to learn from them or at least not yet, not like the expectant revelation you are waiting for.
2. There are days you will not recognize yourself.
And that doesn’t always mean you are lost. Sometimes it just means you are changing. You are allowed to change. You are supposed to, meant to. What are humans if not ever evolving? Sometimes it’s not into someone particularly better than before, but I hope it is. If it isn’t, I hope your conscience leads you to redemption. Some days you’ll cry for the person you used to be. Other days, you’ll cry because you don’t know who you are at all.
Also, the self you are mourning may not come back, but maybe she’s not meant to.
3. Your mind can be a great liar, but a persuasive one too.
The voices in your head sound like truth. They wear your voice and they convince you that your sadness is your identity. It is not. The fear, the worry, the trauma, the insecurities…they may be real but the fact that you can overcome them is also real.
4. Faith can feel both like a lifeline and a language you’ve forgotten.
I’m holding on to God, but on other days, I feel like I’m in my own world doing my own thing. Lost, like a child who forgot her way home.
5. You can carry beauty and sorrow in the same breath.
Gratitude and grief are not opposites. I am deeply grateful, and I am deeply in pain. I am learning that these seemingly contradictory states do not cancel each other out. Gratitude can live beside sadness. And you can be grateful and still want more.
6. Alone is not always lonely and lonely is not always alone.
I have a community that cares, this I know very well. However, loneliness doesn’t always come from lack. Sometimes it comes from being unreachable, even to yourself. You can feel surrounded by love and still feel alone. You can be held and still need space. People can love you deeply and still not hold you fully, same with you. That’s not failure, that’s humanity. Also, you may be a complex being but you are not hard to love.
Some relationships will become softer, quieter. Let them. Love doesn’t always need to be loud to last.
7. You will be tempted to disappear.
But there is always someone, somewhere, hoping you don’t. Sometimes you work extra hard to ‘erase’ yourself because if you leave first, then the possible dejection will not hurt (and you learn that you never really knew how afraid you were of being a disappointment because you’ve never had to disappoint the most important people in your life, until you did). Other times, you try to make yourself unlovable in hopes that if they leave, it eases the guilt that you are the one who actually did. You pull away, shut down, lash out; not because you want to be abandoned, but because you believe it’s inevitable. Still, somehow, love finds a way in.
Some seasons ask you to retreat. Not to disappear, but to gather. To go quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat again.
8. Closure doesn’t always come.
Sometimes you have to give it to yourself. Sometimes the door stays open, but you learn to walk past it anyway (I think some wise person once said this).
9. There’s no shame in imperfection – though I still feel it.
Sometimes the one thing you’ve always held together falls apart, the one plan that felt solid enough sublimes and the one thing you never thought would go wrong goes wrong. It happens.
10. A clean room or a cup of coffee can be the day’s only win.
And sometimes that has to be enough. I like a good cup of coffee now. On Monday afternoons specifically. It feels like a small truce with life.
11. Grief changes your relationship with time.
It becomes heavier. Every moment feels like it might vanish. Every goodbye feels permanent. Time becomes torture, slow and fast at the same time.
12. The pressure to “make it make sense” is crushing.
I am tired of making sense of things. Sometimes things are just senseless and that is what makes them hard.
13. There are truths you won’t know how to tell yet.
There are versions of my truth I have not spoken out loud yet. Not because I’m dishonest (the lie of omission is a thing), but because the truth is a lot, even for me. Because I don’t always know where to begin (my English Language teachers would come for me for starting a sentence with ‘because’). Sometimes, I just straight up lie, say things like “I’m good, thanks.” I’m working on it. A friend of mine usually says “I’m trying my best” instead.
14. Fitness goals are easy to break when just getting out of bed is a battle.
And yet I still judge myself for not being disciplined enough. Also, where do we draw the line between gluttony and stress eating? (a friend and I have been trying to figure this out. Yes, my friends make up a huge part of my life.)
15. I don’t know if feelings are real constructs.
And it’s funny how feeling nothing at all is also a feeling. Saying “I don’t know” is powerful, freeing too.
16. Your mother’s love can anchor you to the world when you want to disappear.
I don’t know if anything can come close to it. This is just my own experience of it. I know there’s much more to this. There are times when the sound of my mother’s voice is the only thing that matters, even when I don’t hear what she’s saying.
17. You can sit with a loved one, laugh and still want to vanish.
Yes, too much of the vanishing thoughts. Joy and emptiness often sit at the same table. I’m trying not to feel like a fraud for that, too much pretense and performance for my liking though. Sometimes showing up is the bravest thing you’ll do though. No grand gesture, just being there.
18. The beach still makes sense when nothing else does.
And I cannot believe I never experienced this until I was 19 and I still don’t get to as often as I would like. Also, romanticising your life is not delusion (or for me, at least not always), and I only learnt this once I stopped. It’s another form of survival. Painting sunsets while drinking red grape or apple juice. Wearing perfume just for yourself. Looking at the sky for a second longer. It all matters.
19. You may not be okay, but you are not broken.
Don’t mind me saying life broke me blah blah (it did though). You are tender. You are in process. You are still here.
20. Growth doesn’t always look like progress.
Sometimes it looks like breaking down. Like sleeping too much. Like canceling everything. Like showing up anyway. Losing motivation doesn’t mean you’ve lost direction, I think.
21. Healing is brutal.
Healing is not always visible, even to you. It’s not always crying in the shower. Sometimes it’s drinking water, answering that message and dressing up for lectures. Or at least I’d like to believe this gut-wrenching process is healing. I refuse to let it be anything else. This is a refinery. It’s gold being burned to purity. It’s pressure making diamonds.
22. I did say “20 or so”, lol! There is no rulebook for becoming.
There’s just you, here, now. Failing and trying. Falling and getting up. Hiding and still hoping. And the Pinterest quotes say that’s enough for today.
23. Politics stress me out far more than I would like.
I find myself occupying my head space about things I sometimes hardly even understand and it can get quite consuming.
24. I want to learn how everyone’s brain works.
And that’s probably impossible. This, coupled with my frustration about how life could be one big lie is just…!
25. Do not ignore your joys.
It’s a good thing to be at peace. Learn to detach from the melancholy. Laugh out loud if you feel like it. Dance. Sing off-tune. Giggle. Celebrate yourself. Pamper yourself. Compliment yourself and walk exactly as good as you feel.
26. Oh, well…
Five years from now, or even tomorrow, I might disagree with everything I wrote here and I guess, that too, is okay.
Maybe 20 sometimes is about walking through the fog even when you’d rather lie down. Even though, I’ve been doing more of the lying down than the walking through the fog lately.
The proper title for this should have been “20 Things I’ve Had To Come To Terms With In My 20 Years Of Life” but the current one sounds shorter and sweeter.
P.S. – This is not me romanticising negative thoughts or something. There is nothing sweet about feeling low beyond comprehension. This is me painting you a picture of my thoughts as they come and believe me, trying to find hope in the midst of pessimistic inside voices can look something like this at times. And yes, I may or may not have said that I am never writing again, I lied to myself.
.thegirlwhowantedtobethesun
Dorky Perky Writes 