21 is the strangest age that I've encountered yet. Each year since I was about 15, I thought I knew everything. I thought I was intelligent. I thought I was invincible. I was carefree. I was naive, and achieving happiness was effortless. I was a child, who thought she was an adult.
The past three years since I graduated, have been quite different. It's almost as if I've had to watch every step I've taken, or I might step onto a rusty nail hidden between the floorboards, or sink deep into the quicksand that disguised itself as grass. Everything I thought I knew, has changed. And for a bit, I absolutely hated it. I didn't know who I was or what I wanted to do. I didn't even have a plan for the next day, if I even woke up, let alone for the next few months, or years. I thought I'd physically die when I lost my first love. Or when I had my first panic attack. Or when I flipped out and chose not to go to college. Or even when I left my first ever job. I thought I'd physically die when I turned 21, because the last two years leading up to it were absolute shit, and I was terrified.
But for some unknown reason, it's been nothing but great so far. In the last six months I've turned 21, visited my dream place, faced my fears, found myself again, realized my worth, appreciated everything in life so far, entered a new year, accepted my sexuality, and my anxiety, and I've realized that it's okay if I still don't know what's happening in the next five minutes, or the next five years. Everything that I've been put through, was a small minuscule bump on this long road trip journey of life, and I was acting as if my car had run out of gas. I've only been 21 for half a year, and it's already been my favorite year so far. 21 years young feels so golden and deserved, and I think I'm going to like these next six months.