Today is a completely new place co to the world we knew fifty years ago. Women are going to college for more than just a MRS degree, men are stay-at-home parents, women are waiting until they are thirty to get married, and so much more. Back then, when you turned thirty you were married with three kids probably cooking dinner every night for when your husband returned home from work. Now, women are more independent. Instead of worrying about Mr. Right, they are worried about their careers, or what adventures they want to pursue after college. Now, turning thirty doesn't mean you are getting old, it's a new stepping stone in your life -- one many used to take at twenty. Thirty is the new twenty, so where does that leave the twenty-year-olds of the world? The new sixteen?
That's right, sixteen. And do we honestly want to be sixteen again? You're still the new kids in high school, the awkward phase has barely ended, and all you are worried about is being older and growing up. Being sixteen has its perks, and if you ask a lot of older people, they may say they would love to go back to this time in their lives. To just be a teenager where your biggest problem is getting asked to prom and acne. Sixteen is that time in your life where you thought you could do anything and that all your dreams could come true. The harsh realities of life haven't come close to hitting you right smack in the face like they undoubtedly do. Sixteen is a special year and a special time in your life, but is sixteen what we want to be when we are twenty?
When you are twenty, you know life is really about to start. College will end soon, you will be invited to more weddings than you can count, you have to start figuring out what are you going to do after you graduate, and when will you get engaged. It used to be that you got married out of college, started having kids and then you got old. Now, women are waiting until they are 26 to think about marriage, not having their first kid until 30, and beginning all these adventures later in life after they have grown up some more and figured out what they really want. Back then, you stopped being a kid at twenty; you were officially not a teenager and life got real -- fast.
Now, twenty-year-olds are more irresponsible, they care about fun and possibilities and all the things they can still do. Sure, twenty-year-olds, for the most part, have always been like that, but now there is no sense of feeling like you have to grow up and have to start really being an adult. Most of us don't feel like that until we are thirty. We feel like our sixteen-year-old selves because we kind of are. We are fresh and new and have the world at our feet -- ready to try stupid things and mess up a lot. Willing to be crazy and look for excitement, without fear because we don't really know better. We don't have to get our lives together yet, because we still have time.
Thirty is the new twenty, and twenty is the new sixteen. We have allowed ourselves more time to grow up, to learn, to be crazy, to love and to get hurt. The twenty-year-olds of the world knew exactly what they were doing, being sixteen. No one wants to be sixteen forever, but a few extra years sure is nice.
