I have been twenty-years-old for one month now, and I don't like it that much. Being 20 is like the sophomore year of ages: you're not old enough to coolly and legally drink your sorrows away and not young enough to blame your mistakes on your lack of years. Here's to my first year of being a true adult!
I am now longer a teenager - riddled by crippling self-esteem issues and obsessed with boys and their cooties. I am supposed to be leading a life as an adult. I have been forced into this. Without my consent and with a few anti-climatic birthday cards, I was initiated into the shitty world that is adulthood. I didn't ask for this! No one asks for this!
Over the past month, I have been wracking my brain for some almighty answer, for some sign that I'll thrive as an adult. However, the best thing I've seen over the past thirty days is a man dressed as a banana and a few cute dogs. Adulthood is not cracking up to be like the spectacular life that my high school career fair assured me it would be.
Being an adult sucks, and I'm afraid it's never going to get any easier. Over the years, I'll start to lose my faith in humanity as my strength starts to dwindle and as my taste buds devolve and only allow me to enjoy pea soup and bread.
Turning twenty - starting my third humble decade - has made me realize how important retaining my hope and childlike passion is. Without that, the life I lead will be led by a walker decorated with ratty tennis balls or rolled along on a wheelchair instead of playing shuffleboard like a champ or showing the young whippersnappers how to really dance.
I plan on living for awhile, but I need to remind myself that with every decade I will lose a bit more of my faith and my tenacity. It's inevitable when you're not entirely and dangerously optimistic.
With every day, month, and year that passes, I will become more and more disgruntled. However, I will grow to be wise (knock on wood). I will grow to learn more about the world and its people. I will become a goddess of age, wisdom, and everything else that I can be a goddess of. I will be magnificent...hopefully.
However, now is not my time to be that mesmerizing. I'm still struggling to tackle the most basic things of life like paying taxes, filing bills, getting mail daily, making good decisions, etc.
I am not particularly thriving, but I'm not failing either.
