Written by Abigail Marble
Art by Greta Scheff
When I turned twenty everything shifted: sitting in my hazy, incense-filled room; crying on the quilt my grandmother made for me when I turned thirteen; thinking about what would come next. The week had already been miserable, from fighting with a roommate, hostile energy flooding the apartment, no AC, and three twelve-hour shifts back to back had me on edge. Then, I turned twenty, and the sturdy, emotionally-stable dam I built—out of distractions and deep breaths—burst, spilling everything that had been building up inside of me onto my grandmother’s quilt.
When the clock struck midnight on June twenty-fifth, the tectonic plates of my life shifted below me and shook me to my very core—revealing a new, mature person to acquaint myself with. I don’t know them or how they think, move, or really do anything. The more time I spend with them, the more I think I will never be able to fully understand them.
Living amongst the unknown has sucked the joy out of everything: welcome to the world of pessimism, where the worst will probably happen, only because I think so. With my twenty-year-old mindset not yet fully formed, and my teenage mindset slowly slipping away, I am left in a state of uncertainty.
Trying to navigate twenty has been a whirlwind of emotions. I have felt like a caterpillar in its cocoon; the time alone will allow me to grow and understand myself.
With this new person emerging within me, my old self has been slipping away to allow room for the new. The feeling of losing yourself to find yourself has sent me into a spiral. Feeling my personality, mindset, and behaviors become lost in the storm of my emotions, while also continuing like normal has been a struggle. I am not sure how to continue. I have lost my sense of direction and have become stranded in the middle of uncertainty and instability.
Being lost without a map has led me to ask a lot of questions that I can’t find answers to. Or maybe I don’t want to know the answers? I don’t know what twenty-year-olds do. Is this age serious or is it the last year I can have fun before becoming serious? How do I have fun yet focus on what needs to be done; where does this balance come from?
While slowly losing my personality, quick decision-making skills, and my sanity, I resorted to the next best way to answer questions: tarot readings. One of my closest friends does tarot readings, so I turned to her for advice and guidance. I asked what any college student would: Am I choosing the correct career path? I also slipped in a question about my love life because that’s always fun to talk about.
Very, very long story short, I am choosing the right career path. I should be in a career where I get to communicate through writing, possibly an advice column; picturing my Dear Abby (literally) advice column now. When it comes to my love life, that’s no one’s business—not even mine.
Wanting to know that I’m not alone, I asked some of my closest friends what happened on their twentieth birthdays; their thoughts, their mindset, their feelings, and just every detail. One of my roommates, Kate, had a more hopeful and optimistic view of turning twenty. She felt excited, old, and ready to turn twenty-one. She also kept thinking about that one Mamma Mia quote: “How old are ya?” “I’m twenty!”
Another one of my roommates, Rehema, felt the same as I did. The day before her birthday she felt super hopeful, but as she kept thinking about it, she felt nervous about the anticipated change and feeling more mature with more expectations. However, when she woke up on her twentieth birthday, she felt the exact same and was just happy to be there.
The answer that stuck out to me the most was from one of my closest friends. When she turned twenty she was surrounded by uncertainty. She had dropped out of a bachelor’s program at Pratt, her absolute dream school, to pursue an associate degree. She was confused and lost, but this decision made her realize that she wanted to apply to a biochemistry program and pursue a degree related to medicine.
Her initial answer to this question hit hard.
“How did you initially feel when you first turned twenty?”
“Like it was a miracle because I never thought I wanted to live that long.”
When she turned twenty she was confused, and uncertain about what she wanted to do in life, and thankful that she made it that far. I believe that we are all confused and stuck in an uncertain period of our life. Things can change so fast—especially in your early twenties— leaving you no time to process what has happened because you are already onto the next thing.
It’s been almost three months since my birthday and I have learned and changed in so many different ways. I have accepted the change that comes with being twenty; the responsibilities, the expectations, and the maturity. Learning to go with the flow and learning from doing has been my biggest takeaways thus far. I can focus on the future and give myself a panic attack or I can focus on the present and appreciate what I have now. I have also taken this time to build my work ethic so I can set my future self up for success. So, I don’t have to be so worried about the future which has helped me stay calm and grounded in the present.
I hope twenty-one brings me peace. I hope to have worked on myself so that, by the time I am twenty-one, I can start my last two semesters of college with peace of mind. I also hope to have another breakthrough when I’m twenty-one that could send me down another rabbit hole, because these spirals build character, self-awareness, and help figure out who you are and what you want out of life.
The trials and tribulations of being twenty may send you into an emotion and hormone-induced spiral, stripping you of everything you know about yourself while making you complete daily tasks like nothing has happened. Turning twenty sucks, but if that’s what you have to go through to emerge into the well-rounded person you hope to be one day, you have to be willing to lose yourself to then find yourself as a wise, mature, and optimistic person.