It's my sophomore year of college. I often find myself baffled at that statement. How did I end up here? I still remember waking up for my first day of middle school so clearly and I can still hear my best friends from high school laughing obnoxiously like they're next to me and not miles away. It's just crazy how fast the time slips away from you. One second you're running barefoot through the dewy grass with your brother and sister and you blink and now you're in a cramped living room with mix matched furniture surrounded by people you've only known for a few months. People that you share this inexplicable feeling with. This feeling of confusion and exhaustion and restlessness. The feeling of growing up and not understanding what that even means or is supposed to feel like.
We are entering an age of uncertainty. I've often read that your twenties are full of confusion and blind wandering until you find where you're supposed to be, which is terrifying. What person would enjoy being in the dark and ineptly fumbling around for ten years? English film director, Nigel Cole once said, "I think your 20's are the hardest part of life. I mean, everyone goes on about how hard it is to be a teenager, but actually I think it’s tougher to be in your 20's because you’re expected to be a grownup and expected to earn your own living and be successful and I think you feel like a kid still."
Occasionally, when I'm asked my age I start to say seventeen or eighteen. I forget that years have passed since I was that age, but I still somehow still feel like just another adolescent. I don't feel old enough to be able to start building credit or even call to make my own doctors appointment. I sure as hell don't feel like an "adult." I wonder when that word begins to actually take hold.
The only solace I find in this uncertainty is that almost everyone in their twenties feels the same way. It's a universal state of perplexity among us all, and it makes for a great sense of community. On a weekly, if not daily, basis, my friends and I discuss this funk that we are in. The routineness of class then work then homework then sleep then wake up and do it all over again until the weekend. We talk about how stressed and tired we all feel. We almost all have no clear idea of who we want to be or what we want to do. It's just comforting to be able to talk through your doubts with other people who reciprocate the same feelings you do.
Although, we are all confused and kind of lost, at least we are in it together.
