20s

As a freshly new 20-year-old I don’t have much to say about what happened in my twenties. Most of the time, if I’m being honest, I forget that I’m twenty. Someone will ask my age or make a comment about something that happened 20 years ago then say “you weren’t born yet.” I don’t feel 20, or like a teenager, or even a 30-year-old. I know my age is 20, but my knowledge about life is what confuses me. I know more about some topics than other 20-years-old, but with other topics I know less. You’re never really on the same knowledge level as anyone else, ever. I think it becomes more prevalent when you’re out of school. When you’re not surrounded by people who are all the same age as you, act similar because that’s what you do in school. I think that’s when you truly realize what you know and what you don’t know so much about. You go through things and you learn from them. Just because that happens doesn’t mean everybody your age went through something similar or even at the same brain development spot. The one thing I do know, almost if not everybody, feels is pressure. Roughly the same ways, at the same time, and regarding the same topics. Especially, in your 20s. There’s this unspoken pressure of where you should be at 24 and who you should be with at 26 and the way you should be at 29. There are all of the invisible deadlines relating to our career, with love, and life. We almost feel guilty for making mistakes or not being where “they” think we should be at a certain time on a certain date at a certain age. It’s like we need to have our shit together. Yet, nobody has their shit together. We’re wrong for not having our shit together, but the fact of the matter is we’re not perfect at making it appear to literally everybody that we do indeed have our shit together. We don’t really get to enjoy anything because we’re so stressed about the invisible deadlines. We worry over whether we’re doing things “the right way.” The right way isn’t the right way. It’s not the way for most people, but people feel like they have to follow it. Nobody feels pleasure in doing things the wrong way, when people should. Society says everybody makes mistakes, but nobody is actually allowed to make mistakes. People should be taught to live in the present and grow up in the process. I think it naturally happens that way anyway. You grow up by going through shit. My brother died when I was 17. It changed my life, obviously, but the reality of it was I learned a lot and grew a lot from going through that. Whether I liked it or not, I was growing. My views changed along with my personality and overall who I was as a person. Every single thing that happens is part of the process and every single thing that happens makes you grow. I read all over the internet that my 20a will be my selfish years. I don’t really get what that means because in my 20s I belong to everybody else. I feel as though, in today’s world, you never really are selfish. You don’t have the opportunity to be selfish because you always belong to someone or something. How can I be selfish when I have all these invisible deadlines to meet? Oh, you don’t see those invisible deadlines? That’s right, you’re the one giving the invisible deadlines.