forward:
I remember feeling a heavy weight, turning 20. Entering a new decade while leaving my teenage years behind all well, still partying a decent amount as a college student, living in this land of extended adolescence where you are technically legally an adult but no where near the actual mental or physical reality of adulthood (i.e., mom and dad are most likely still footing the rent bill of the frat house).
I remember feeling like, “oh shit, this is the decade all the change happens”. The graduations, the career building, the serious dating, the moving to the big city, the engagements, the marriages, etc. This is the decade where you set yourself up for the life you envision building for yourself. All well, still, enjoying the reality of being in a place in life where you are getting absolutely hammered at an Airbnb in Laguna Beach with your closest friends (and somehow the entire uninvited Pike House?)
----------
20-21 was an idyllic, magical world. It was like riding high on endless possibilities, and it truly felt like the world was your oyster. Now there’s a girl and a boy laying in bed having a much-needed hangover recovery pillow talk from the fun night filled with brews with the gang. The boy turns to the girl and says, “he will be retired by 30, no 25. And how he has dreams just to run his own cafe turned bar with great music”. The girl smiles, laughs, and shares her dreams of either being a big real estate developer in NYC or one day having her own talk show one day. Their friends and classmates are just as passionate dreamers as them. One wants to play music all over the country, another wants to produce huge movies in LA, the other wants to build her own app and run her own start-up company, the list goes on…….
then.
22-24 was a chaotic battlefield that you feel no one prepared you for. The heartbreak of saying goodbye to your little college town with your little tiny home with your best friends all under one roof, walking distance from each other and your favorite dive bar. No one would prepare you for the stress you would feel if you were still jobless at graduation or the judgement/confusion you would feel from other parents if you decided to do something unconventional for work after school. Because not only did you realize early on you were not built at for the soulless 9-5 at a corporation but you also just saw the writing on that wall that traditional model of “success / building wealth” through working one job getting very minimum raise bumps would not be sustainable with the hyperinflation our country was about to experience. Where the younger generation is getting priced out of buying a home (even a studio condo) in most cities, and everyone has to have a side hustle as an extra stream of income just to keep up with basic expenses. And yet still you made it out somehow, many a little beat up but you're alive and on the other end of it.
you reach 25 finally….
25 is about learning you can still dream big just maybe not as big as you once did. You have been beaten down by the world a decent amount. At this point, you are no longer the star(y) eye, all things are possible, 20-year-old you once were. Practicality has weaseled its way into your life in some way or another, and that's ok in the same ways because it forces you to get specific, weed out the junk &focus on the big, more important goals at play. You recognize the bullshit & focus on the truth. You can ditch the fake friends & see who was truly there for you all along. It brings you the clarity you need to refocus, reengage & re envision the life you hope to live the rest of your life. Congrats you made it on the other end :)