Chapter 30
I still don’t know what I’m doing
As of today, I am no longer in my twenties. Wow — what a concept. What a time. What a privilege. I thought recently about how much I’ve been avoiding aging — how much we all do. We’re taught, specifically as cis-gendered women, to buy all the serums, creams, lotions and injectables, to help us look as young as possible. That’s not a bad thing; taking care of yourself is great. But what’s the obsession with youth? When you’re young, there’s so much you don’t understand. You’re learning from the world and those around you. It’s exciting. It’s rough. It’s incredibly depressing. It’s a jolt of energy. But those wrinkles we gain, are our badges of honor. They’re life’s way of telling us simultaneously that our bodies are aging and that we have lived through it all.
What a privilege.
And I know it may not be a privilege for everyone. Some days it doesn’t feel like a privilege. When life’s too tough and sad. When you’re in the throes of grief. Or, when you simply feel you cannot go on — birthdays remind you that you made it. You made it one more year. You’re resilient in so many ways. We only celebrate that one day out of the year. We should be celebrating it every day, week, and month. Look world, I’m still alive. I’m making it through another day!
For me, getting older is a privilege. During Senior year of high school, one of our classmates died tragically from brain cancer. He had turned 18 just two weeks before. It is an honor to turn older, to live more of life that others weren’t able to. Their time on earth may have ended early, but your time is still going. And isn’t that something to always celebrate? Not just on one day.
My twenties were a dumpster fire. Growing up, I couldn’t wait to be in my twenties. Those years were glamorized by TV shows and movies alike. The young, sexy, vibrant twenty-year-old something, who goes out and has the world at their fingertips. I wanted to be the Latina Carry Bradshaw. Hell — I still want to be the Latina Carry Bradshaw. It went like that…only a little to the left and a little to the right.
People always used to say that your twenties are the time of your life. I’m here to say — they’re 100% not. They can be for many of us. But mostly, as I collect data and hear more stories, they’re not the time of your life. They’re a decade to mess up and mess around — and that’s putting it calmly.
When I turned twenty, I was in Paris during my study abroad semester. I went to school, babysat, then met a friend at some bar where I ended up meeting a guy. Spoiler alert: it went nowhere except a chance encounter. The years after are a blur. I dated, went through a whole lot of job stressors, found myself in taxis late at night drunk and crying as I passed one of my favorite NYC landmarks— the Brooklyn Bridge. Hung out with friends late at night in dive bars. Traveled as much as my responsibilities allowed. Sent my resume out to countless companies and ran around interviewing like it was my second job. Towards the end of the decade, I wrapped up some loose ends in various ways. Jobs that took a toll on my mental health, were absolutely no longer worth any paycheck. Friendships that were once extremely close, were now a bit more distant. Time made us grow and we shed some of our skin. We were no longer the people whom we first met all those years ago. I moved away, got married, adopted a puppy and now have more peace in my heart than I ever have before.
I’ve always had a lot to be grateful for. And that too — is a privilege.
Yesterday, on my last day in my twenties, my GPS took me a different route to the office. I’ve been on this route maybe twice before so it’s very rare. While driving on the suburban windy roads, I came across a church. The sign outside read, “Embrace uncertainty. When nothing is certain, anything is possible.” That hit.
My whole life — twenties especially — I fought uncertainty, and I fought it damn hard. That’s why transitions and change have been so tough for me. It’s not about the new beautiful chapter only; it’s about the grief of letting go of an old one, saying goodbye to what once was, the uncertainty about what life’s going to bring next or how this current chapter will go. The uncertainty of many different changes — even the most beautiful ones — made me feel like I was losing my mind.
To read that quotation, on the last day of my twenties, handed me a prescription for this next decade. Embrace the uncertainty. If those years taught me anything, it’s that no one knows what they’re doing. No one will ever know what they’re doing; nor do they have it any more figured out than you do. The relationships we have in our lives, no matter how stable and loving they might be today, could no longer be next week or month or year. So just…be. Don’t fight it. You can’t change the fact that life is a pool of endless uncertainty. For my anxiety brain — that’s a lot to take in. It’s a lot of grief to hassle with. What do you mean I can’t control my life? What do you mean I have no clue if this relationship/ job/ opportunity will work out? I’ll show you otherwise! *shakes fist to the sky*
When I was grappling with relationship anxiety years ago, a therapist I had told me, “Say to yourself, ‘okay, I don’t have the answers to all of my questions right now. And maybe those answers will come one day, or maybe they won’t. But right now, I don’t know, and that’s okay.’ The more you breathe through uncertainty, the easier it becomes to handle.” And she was right. It hasn’t been less scary, but the scary is easier to breathe through.
My 28th and 29th year brought so much change, it was beautiful and overwhelming all at once. But I came through and now starts page one of Chapter 30. And those last years taught me that we have power, so much of it. And there’s so much we can control. But even more that we can’t. We don’t know where our decisions will ultimately take us. Many might be successful and great decisions, but some might not pan out the way we hope. Even with the best of intentions. But we move forward, we learn, we grow, we change. And we’re all forced to ride the various waves of life, regardless of age and wisdom.
So, for my thirtieth year, I’m not going to make grand goals. My wish for myself, is to find as much peace in the present as possible. To not look back so damn much, and to not cling to the future. To just sit still and marvel. To hug and love those around me as much as I can through words and action, for as long as I can. And that’s my life’s mission: to just love and appreciate as much as I’m capable, for as long as life will have me. That’s it. Anything really is possible, because so much is unknown.
And that’s okay. I’m finally okay with that.
