I feel like we spend our whole life looking forward to a different time in it. When we're kids we can't wait to be in high school. When we're in high school we can't wait to be in college. When we're in college we don't know what we want, we just want to be done with college. But it seems we don't really know what we want at that point. We just want to be done with this part. We want to move on to whatever is next, whatever hurdle we can jump. But what is next?
As a twenty-something it seems that the normal things we should look forward to is finding a career and starting a family. But what happens when we aren't ready for either? Or we don't know what we want? How can we choose between going to grad school and making something huge out of ourselves or starting the process of marriage and children. And when the hell do we decide to buy a home? At what point in our life does someone sit down with us and explain that you need to have 10% down and how realtors work. Or are we just magically suppose to know these things?
How do we know that we are ready to be parents? When someone tells us our clocks are ticking? When does the time come and we can look in the mirror to say "Damn, I'm ready to be a bombass parent!" Or does the fact of us saying two cuss words in a eight word sentence already symbolize our immaturity.
All I am trying to say is that as a twenty-something we feel like we're already adults. Like we're already here. Yet, we still feel so far from what we should be. I just would like to know when our expectations of being adults come into play?
I know that when I was young I thought that once I was twenty-one I would be an adult. That I wanted to have kids by twenty-two. I also assumed I would have a career, or at least know what I wanted to be. I thought everything would fall in my lap, ready to take on the world.
But here I am, sitting in the library drinking a hot cocoa with a ton of whip cream. Still laughing at kids jokes. Still wondering what I'm going to turn out to be when I "grow up". Still getting way too excited for free candy.
And I can't help, but wonder... Maybe we spend our whole life's making expectations for the way the rest of it should be like. Maybe it's okay when our life hasn't turned out quite the way we thought it would five years ago. Maybe, just maybe, it's pretty nice being a twenty-something with our whole lives ahead of us.
