If you're like me, you're probably rolling your eyes upon looking at the calendar. Whether your birthday just past, is coming up, or if you have a long way to go, you're still not too happy. The dreaded 20 is finally almost here. For most people, 20 is the year in which you're still top young to order that margarita or hit up that club in the city, and you honestly don't know how much longer you can wait to be legal. But in actuality, turning 20 is actually a pretty big deal for most people, whether you realize it or not. Welcome to your second year of life, a time when anything actually is possible. You're officially turning into your own boss, and although for most people this comes at varying speeds, it typically happens between the years of 20 and 29.
But first thing first; you're finally kissing goodbye a decade filled with hormones, bad relationships, and tossing behind the term "teenager" once and for all. After all, our teenage years are probably the years most people will cherish and remember for a lifetime. They were the instrumental building blocks upon what we will build adulthood off of. From learning how to drive, beginning and graduating high school, beginning college, making (and losing) lifelong friends, it's a pretty wild ride. Our teenage years are definitely noted as some of the most embarrassing of our lives as well because we simply didn't have all of the skills and confidence needed to embrace ourselves and not worry about what other people think of us. Leaving behind those numbers ending in -teen may just be the most bittersweet part of turning 20.
From 20-29, some pretty remarkable things usually happen for most people across the world. For instance, most people get engaged in their twenties, and following have children and start careers. Most people do a good amount of traveling as well, and really use this youthful adulthood to their advantage, being able to bask in adult-activities and being able to afford them without really being a full-fledged adult. Most people also finish their degrees and graduate from college with either a bachelor's degree, or even a master's. To me, your twenties are a time of complete personal transition and metamorphosis in which we use all of the knowledge acquired during our lifetimes and apply it in our real lives.
During our twenties, we're forced to grow up and file taxes, rent (and furnish) apartments, buy our own food, balance checkbooks, attend weddings, make responsible decisions and ignore our parent's taunting us with the ever-so condescending "I told you so." We never even realized how difficult is was to be a real person in a world that we had only observed and from the outside looking in, it didn't seem as difficult as it is. Sure, our twenties won't be as glamorous as celebrities who have all of these things taken care of for them, but it definitely will feel good to one day realize how much we've worked to be in the place that we are. One day you'll wake up in your cramped apartment, with last night's dishes still dirty in the sink and the broken alarm clock that has now made you late for work, and you'll smile because no matter how hard it gets, you'll know how much you have and how far you've come from the days where you never thought you would escape your "evil" parents and all of your peers who "didn't understand you". After all, they don't call them the roaring 20's for nothing.
