Hello.
Welcome to my blog! This is a new adventure, hopefully a positive one, to counteract the complete and utter mess that has been my life as a twentysomething-year-old so far. Recently, I have seen a bunch of articles floating around social media about the twentysomething experience (here and here), so I decided, what better way to start TwentysomethingMonths than with an article of my own?
Up until a few years ago, my life had been nothing but sugar plums and gumdrops. I went to a small, public, liberal arts college where my biggest concern was the dining hall running out of my favorite flavor of ice cream. I was involved and engaged. A well-known student leader on campus, walking beside the ivy-covered brick buildings, hearing the bell tower chime every quarter hour, and waving along the way to the multiple friends and coworkers that were also walking around, enjoying the scenic views of campus.
When walked across the graduation stage two Mays ago, I experienced an immense feeling of pride swell up in the depths of my chest. Yet as soon as I walked off the stage and down the three little steps back to my seat, I was hit with a brick wall of reality and truth. I was no longer a college student. I was no longer surrounded by a group of people that I felt a part of. I no longer belonged. My concerns went from dining dollars to paying taxes with real money, engaged to depressed, and self-confident to trying to find myself yet again.
Being a twentysomething has questioned everything I have ever known. My own values have been challenged, and I may or may not have succumbed depending on the situation. Certain things I had frowned upon previously, **coughcoughonlinedating** are now taking up way more of my time than I would like to admit. Seeing friends every day has now turned into an occasional phone conversation maybe once every other month (if I’m lucky), and family has become even more estranged and separate.
The worst part is that nobody ever talks about this weird limbo time that we are all finding ourselves in. When I was growing up, I was encouraged to do one of two things: 1. Stay young forever, enjoy my childhood, etc, or 2. Grow up, get a job, get married, and have children. No one suggested a third option: 3. Lose yourself, move away from everyone you love, and download tinder. Nope, that was never talked about, and yet, I would like to strongly identify with choice number 3. Anybody else out there agree?
So, I encourage everyone to break this (awkward) silence of the twentysomething life. Why don’t we talk more about this? Maybe if I had grown up with this kind of conversation, I would’ve felt a little more prepared for it all. I want this blog to be a conversation, a space for all twentysomethings to be able to come together and have these conversations. It’s never too late to start, right?
twentysomethingmonths 