I Am Slowly Learning Your 20s Are The Most Confusing Years Of Your Life

Danielle Drislane

I am slowly learning your twenties are a weird blend of mature and immature moments. You have to find a full-time job. Pay for your own meals and car insurance and rent. Build up your credit. Start saving for retirement. Take steps toward finding your dream job and dream house and dream person.

You have to get your shit together. You have to create a plan for yourself and you have to take care of yourself because no one else is going to do it for you.

In your twenties, you experience true independence for the first time. You finally realize you are in charge of your own fate and you have to put in constant effort to create the future you have always wanted to live.

I am slowly learning your twenties are filled with grown-up experiences like grocery shopping every weekend and waiting in line at the DMV — but then there are days when you get blackout drunk with your friends from high school and show up at work hungover. Days when you waste money you don’t have on dinner with your friends where you make the same jokes you have been making for the last decade. Days when you call up the ex you should have gotten over by now and hate yourself for running back to them.

Everyone uses the term adulting, but when you’re in your twenties, it feels more like you are caught in between acting like an immature teenager who chooses fun over work and a responsible adult who shows up to meetings at least fifteen minutes early to look good for the boss. It feels like you are trapped in the middle of two separate identities.

I am slowly learning there is a good reason why you feel so confused in your twenties. At that age, your friend group is mixed. You have friends who are already wearing engagement rings and pushing around strollers. You have other friends who are getting wasted every weekend and not arriving home until two in the morning. You’re not sure which is normal. You’re not sure if you’re ahead of the partiers or behind the homebodies.

I am slowly learning the truth is that there is no set path. There is nothing you should or shouldn’t be doing by this age. You are allowed to move at whatever pace that makes you feel comfortable.

There is nothing wrong with you if you are still reaching for your dreams — or if you still aren’t sure exactly what your dream life looks like. And there is nothing wrong if you are already settled down with a family of your own.

No choice is better than the other. They are just different. Everyone travels along different different paths. Every journey has their own destination. You just have to focus on your own footsteps and let everyone else do their own thing, because there is no sense in making comparisons.

I am slowly learning your twenties are supposed to be confusing. They are supposed to make you question yourself. They are supposed to be a complete shitshow. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Holly is the author of Severe(d): A Creepy Poetry Collection.

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