A few weeks ago, I experienced my twentieth trip around the sun. Just the thought of this is bizarre. The sole fact that I no longer have a “-teen” at the end of my age is enough to make me nervously tap my feet. Where did the other nineteen years of my life go?
Years pass in the blink of an eye and with each new candle on the birthday cake, we open ourselves up to another twelve months of growth, endless smiles and days hidden under our bedsheets. Every year I tell myself that something big is going to happen; that there is no better opportunity for me to become someone better than I was at eighteen, seventeen, sixteen.
But you, twenty, feel bigger than the rest. There is no more room for excuses and all the room in the world for improvements; for betterment.
Twenty, this year we will accept that friendships are different now. Another year older basically equates to more things written in the daily planner and less room for movie nights with your freshman year roommate. We will understand that, while it sucks to write a text that says “I can’t today, some other time,” a tighter schedule is just another “perk” to growing.
For the next 12 months, I will keep telling myself that it is more than OK to not know what you want to do with your life. There is no law that declares all life-decisions to be made before turning twenty, and there never will be. This year, we will be accepting of the brain’s ever-changing desires and understand that it is natural to want to be an artist one minute, and then become a marketing major the next day. It is OK that I’m still not completely sure of what really matters to me, or where my passion lies; it will come to me without force, and bloom into a career that is best for me.
Twenty is a year that I will have a healthier approach to the green bills in my wallet. From the start of university to this very point in my life, money has been constant battle; and the constant need for another $15 for gas has weighed heavy on my shoulders. This year, I will not only be more aware of where I spend my money, but also let what I do have, be enough. While some girls my age can sit behind the wheel of a brand new Audi or spend their spring break on a tropical beach, I will understand that this may not be my peak in financial status—but someday, I will get my turn, too.
The joys that we get to experience are once-in-a-lifetime. Each moment spent with a person close to our heart is something that can never be earned back, and we are never guaranteed extra minutes in our lives. Twenty, it’s time to enjoy the present. It’s time to take in each passing second for what it is in its entirety and hold everything closer than I have ever held before. Each time I mindlessly scroll through Instagram is another minute I don’t get to tell my boyfriend how much he means to me. Each time I stress about my future is time that I could have been admiring something beautiful that happened yesterday. Right now is all we have, and this year, I will embrace the present with all of my being.
Every second is a new opportunity to become better than you were; birthdays are not the only day of self-realization. Growing older doesn’t have to be a dreaded time. Allowing yourself to change is the beauty of humanity, and there is never a better time than twenty- right?
