Dear 20s, I don’t miss you.
I spent my 20s, like a lot of people do, trying to figure out who I was and where I was going. I struggled with the concept of being an ‘adult’ and not really being sure what I wanted out of life. Every few months I would come up with a new, drastically different game plan. I’ll get a Ph.D. in Philosophy and become a college professor. I will start a children’s birthday party business. I’ll work as an Activities Coordinator at a memory care facility. These are just three of the wildly different ideas that briefly captured my focus. I wanted so badly to have a clear direction, something to work towards, but nothing ever held my attention for very long.
Perhaps in an attempt to find some direction, I also spent those early years of adulthood befriending who I thought were the ‘right people’, and consequently, trying to mold myself into someone I thought those people would like. Being someone else was exhausting.
I eventually sort of figured out a career path and made some goals for myself. Some of which, I have achieved, others are still on the horizon. Overall, I now have a much clearer picture of what I am working toward, and that is a much more comfortable feeling for me.
I also stopped trying to maintain friendships that felt like work. Now, don’t mistake effort for work. All relationships take effort, but the ones that felt like work just weren’t working for me. I started focusing my effort on the relationships that felt more natural with the people who made me feel energized. With the people who I could be myself with. I finally feel surrounded by incredible women who fiercely support me exactly as I am, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
