20.

I honestly always saw it as being far away, so I never actually processed that the day would come. As I sat up in my bed two days before the big day, I just began to cry. I somehow managed to push aside absolutely everything I have accomplished over the past 20 years of my life and found the need to be upset over not managing to accomplish enough by this age.

After many, many unnecessary tears, I realized that I am turning TWENTY—meaning that the crazy teenage years I went through are finally over, and I can finally start to just focus on myself and my career.

I probably have the worlds biggest fear of aging, which I have talked about in many other articles, but this fear seems to rise while I near every one of my birthdays. After the little meltdown, I thought these thoughts would carry into my birthday, although I found the exact opposite happen.

Saturday came very quickly. I am not a huge partier at all, and after being at Syracuse last year and going out for my birthday and Halloweekend (Halloween weekend), this year I was ready to spend the weekend at home with my friends and family. I traveled home to Maine on Thursday, the day that accompanied my meltdown, and spent the next three days celebrating.

It was a very casual weekend, which is exactly what I needed, and when the morning of my birthday came on Saturday, I was filled with nothing but the feeling of extreme content.

I remember thinking to myself "I literally have accomplished so much." I began to think.

I have spent the last year traveling back and forth to New York Fashion Week, had the amazing opportunity to fly to Japan for nearly the whole month of August, was asked to my first model castings, aside from cover shoots, which I attended two weeks ago in New York City, developed an entire fashion design portfolio and an extremely wholesome resume, am still working at Coach, just finalized my paperwork to be a Backstage Crew Member for the Macy's Day Parade in three weeks in New York City on Thanksgiving day, and got my first brand deal since my middle school days of YouTube, which will be posted within the next couple of weeks.

This is when my tears stopped.

Life is crazy. It's fun, not so much fun, beautiful, difficult, rewarding, gratifying, and way, way too short. These past two days of being twenty have been so good. Not that much has happened since, but I have been able to recognize how much I have accomplished as a teenager and put into perspective how much my work ethic will push me even further in my twenties.

I am now twenty. I'm happy, dedicated, extremely stressed, and sometimes worn-out, but am knowledgeable that I am in the right place in life, and am ready to accomplish everything my teenage self ever dreamed of. Did I say that I'm excited?