Your twenties are a weird place. When you’re younger you’re convinced that by this point you’ll have it all figured out. The relationships, the kids, the house, the job, everything. But I feel we can all agree that none of us have it all figured out.

So, where do go from here then? What is the next step? I have friends who seem to be way better off. They’re farther in their career or education. They have successful relationships and some have begun starting families. I feel like I’m doing well to remember to eat during the day.

Life is stressful and crazy. I really don’t know where to go now. I feel in some ways I’m doing my absolute best, but in others, I’m not.

There are so many other people who are so much farther in their lives, or at least that’s how it feels. I sat and thought today about how much I am struggling to take care of myself. I see people with children and don’t know how they’re doing it. It’s more mouths to feed. It’s more bodies to clothe. It’s more utilities being used.

The future kind of scared the life out of me, making it even harder to figure out what happens next. I’m doing my best right now to make plans for the weekend, I can’t even imagine where I’ll be in a few years.

Part of it is maturity. I don’t think I’m ready to be someone’s wife or mother right now. I think I’m doing well to just be myself, with responsibility only to myself and my cat. Being an adult is harder than I thought. There’s no instruction manual and everyone does things differently. While I have those whom I can turn to, it makes no difference if they’ve never stood in my shoes. I know at some point things will figure themselves out.

I don’t have to be having babies or too drunk to find my phone, but somewhere in between. It’s okay to be a hot mess without a clear direction at this point as long as we find our way back to the main road. No one said by twenty that we had to have all the answers, just to be closer to finding them than we were at nineteen.