As my teenage years come to a close after this short week, I thought I would just do a little "try not to freak out/ 20 is kind of like a midlife crisis/ is my life really together?" type of thing. So...well here it goes:

Teenagerdom was great. Honestly so many fun memories. I think during most of these years I had a bright smile on my face. Wait, the first year of teenagerdom I had a braces-full smile, but hey, still a smile nonetheless. I think my favorite part about being a teenager was the fact that it was a starting place for to be a more independent version of myself. I definitely feel like as a teenager, my choices really affected my life- and I think that this is the first time that I understood the value of my own choice. So I thank my teenage years for that.

These teen years were full of many firsts: First dates, first boyfriend, first kisses, first time driving a car, first job. But as my teenage years have been wrapping up the firsts are sounding a lot more like first time drinking (lol), first time living on my own, first time paying bills, first time thinking that maybe I didn't want to be growing up as fast as I thought I always wanted to.

Crazy turn right? Where did time go? Actually, because I would like to find it and ask it politely to give me a couple more of these years back.

It's crazy to think that people in their 20s are in this kind of "Aha" moment of their lives. For example, the average human in their 20s will be attending weddings, will start dating seriously, will quit their first job, will consider going to grad school, and will start doing real adult stuff at this time in their lives. Crazy, am I right? Or am I right?

And to be starting that realm of my life, well, I'm feeling a little underprepared. False. I'm feeling very underprepared. I have no clue what direction I'm really going in my life right now, so fingers crossed that I can sort it all out in these next ten years. I mean I'm just trying to land that internship, start building my resume, go on more adventures, ace all my classes, build awesome friendships, not make too many stupid mistakes, eat less breaded food, go to work, pay my bills, maybe meet someone cool and fall in love, create more art, make more discoveries, travel, maybe work out a little. You feel? I'd like to start seeing some checkmarks next to this list. And this isn't even the full list, this is just the list that I quickly came up with as I sit on my bed waiting for the microwave to beep.

Don't get me wrong, the adventure of growing up itself is wonderful and I'm so happy to be blowing out 20 candles soon, but I'm freaked out by this adventure as well and maybe I'm not the only one.

If anything, thinking about all the stuff I better be checking off in these next 10 years, makes me feel motivated, Because boy oh boy, I better get started. Come on 20, bring it.

RKH