Back in 2012, I turned twenty.
My twentieth year started in the aftermath of my first real relationship, and ended with a rush of exhilaration as I was accepted to a journalism program out of town. Needless to say, it was an exciting time – and by the end of it, the last thing I felt was scared, upset, or broken.
It turns out, I was in the minority feeling that way. My friends who joined me the Twenty Club were anxious and stressed to be leaving their teen years in the dust.
Look, I get it: change is scary. And, there is something fun about getting to say your age with ‘-teen’ on the end. When I was nineteen, I had anxiety about my school crushes, living in my hometown, and getting a miserable amount of hours at my restaurant job. But, I also adored being a nineteen-year-old. It was when I had some of the best, most wild summertime memories with my friends. Reflecting one it now, those memories with my friends are the freshest in my mind.
This year, I’m turning twenty-seven, and it shows. I’ve been beyond ecstatic the one plant I have is thriving, and I spent too many hours this week shopping around for a robe. This weekend, I made a lasagna and froze it for a future meal so my boyfriend and I could eat it on a rainy day. It’s true: I’m getting older. And, against every message telling me not to, I’m embracing it.
A lot is dawning on me in the wake of that. Being twenty-six feels perfectly in the mid-twenties: old enough to have experience, but young enough to still be, well, young. But turning twenty-seven feels like approaching the official door to my late-twenties, and by extension, my thirties. It’s a ‘so long, and farewell’ to the messiest part of my youth, and a ‘hello’ to the benefits I get to reap.
My perception of time has changed as I’ve grown up. I used to, legitimately, think that 25 was the benchmark age that you got married and started having kids. Oh, how times – and the economy – have changed. I spent my early-twenties scrambling to work pieces of the puzzle into place: my school, my career, my social circle, and my values. A lot of it was confusing, frustrating, and not very encouraging. But with time, some of those pieces fell into place, and things started making sense.
I know that not everyone has it figured out, and adults with all the solutions to life are myths. But, when I think of the things that have come to light, and how there’s more where that came from, how can I not get excited about getting older? Aging is going to happen whether I like it or not, and I want to keep leaning into it with a smile on my face, the way I did when I was twenty.