on turning twenty
editors note: I procrastinated writing this so this is not actually published on my birthday... but here it is anyway!
While I type this, I sit in a coffee shop as indie music plays on the speakers. The walls around me are painted royal blue and plants decorate the corners of the space. The people around me also have their laptops out, most likely to work or to study. I’m doing neither. Instead, I’m going to write a letter. Or maybe it’s more of a string of musings. Or…it’s a string of musings that I’ll treat as a letter to my future self. To my thirty-year-old self, I don’t know what the world will look like in 2034 and if Substack will still be around (or if you get logged out of your account and will never be able to read this), but here are my thoughts on turning twenty. I hope this decade treats you well <3.
Today, I am twenty years old. I don’t usually care for my birthday. I don’t like the pressure that comes with it, how I feel like the day has to be exceptional or else I’m doing something wrong. I get uncomfortable with attention and feel awkward when celebrated. But this time, I’m turning twenty, and starting a new decade is worth celebrating.
Turning twenty excites me. Unlike my childhood and teenage years, this is the first decade that feels like my life is in my own hands. I have so many things I want to do, places I want to see and people I want to meet and the thought of all these possibilities is equally overwhelming and exhilarating.
I wonder if my twenties will be what everyone claims it to be— a time for exploration, self-discovery and independence. I hear it can get lonely. I hear it can be the most fun time of your life. I’m sure it’ll be a mix of both and a mix of a million other things. If it’s like the movies, I’ll probably move to a shoebox in a big city post-grad, fall in love with a guy I met at a coffee shop, cut my hair and travel across the world when we break up, do a bit of soul searching and at last realize it’s all about the friends you make along the way (jk… but also not jk.) And in between those checkpoints, I’ll probably have a couple, “What’s the point of all this?,” “What am I doing with my life?” "What’s my purpose?” moments because is it really your twenties if you don’t have several existential crises along the way?
Amidst my excitement, a small part of me mourns the end of my teenage years. I’m no longer “just a teenage girl.” Every year on my birthday I get nostalgic about how I’ll never be that age again. It’s a privilege, to celebrate another birthday, to live another year, yet, I can’t help but cling to each year. Maybe it’s because getting older feels like an increasingly heavy weight on my shoulders. Like everything is bigger and more consequential than the year before. And as I often do, I start to spiral about the impermanence of everything. I won’t be in college forever. I won’t be twenty forever. I won’t live in my tiny and cozy apartment forever. I fear the impermanence of people’s presence in my life. I guess that’s the reality of life. Impermanence, letting go, growing older… it’s all inevitable but not necessarily bad. It just is.
As I enter this new decade, I’m reflecting on who I am (very much still figuring this out) and anticipating who I’ll be at the end of my twenties.
Who am I now?
I overthink a lot. I can’t handle changes to my routine and am more sensitive than I’d like to admit. I’m impatient and a perfectionist. I am also kind. I am a hard worker. I love reading and photography. I love dancing and music so much I can’t imagine living without them. I’m all this plus a hundred other things that make up my identity yet I don’t know all which are worth mentioning. So, I’ll stick to the surface.
Who will I be ten years from now?
I can’t picture it— what I’ll look like or where I’ll be on my 30th birthday. Regardless, I hope at thirty I radiate confidence. I hope I’m more patient and forgiving to others and myself. I hope I’ve traveled to places that expand my worldview. I hope I’m more comfortable being myself around others.
When the day started, I awoke overwhelmed with the expectations of having the perfect twentieth birthday. Now, as I sit in the comfort of my room, I feel flooded with warmth. Every happy birthday message, from my friends (and my mom’s Facebook friends of course) to my sweet grandma living across the world, reminded me I am loved.
I’m about to end with the cheesiest, early-2000s-romcom-movie-esque line ever but I don’t care because it’s true. Love is all around. As I begin this new decade I hope I spend the next ten years finding love all around me— even in the smallest nooks and places I’d never thought I’d find it in— and spread it as abundantly as I receive it.