When I asked Twitter what being a twenty-something meant to them, Hannah responded with something I wasn’t expecting.
“I don’t turn 20 until October, but to me being a 20something means a fresh start – a blank slate to write my dreams on.”
This girl is on point.
Being a twenty-something means a lot of things. It means you’re finally able to drink (legally). It means you finally have to figure out adult things like car insurance and health insurance and groceries. It means graduating college or working your first full-time job. It means moving out of your parents place for the first time, or moving back in when things don’t work out or you need a place to stay. It means struggle, and loneliness, and it means happiness, and love.
There can be so much good, and so much bad, in just 10 years. It can feel like a lifetime, but then (I’m guessing) you turn 30 and suddenly realize that there is still a lot of time left.
Here’s the best thing about your twenties, though – the thing Hannah reminded me about.
Your twenties are about fresh starts. Blank slates. Dreams.
When you start college. When you choose your major. When you turn 21, or join a club, or meet your first love. When your first love breaks your heart. When you graduate, and get your first full-time job.
Fresh starts. Blank slates. Dreams.
Sometimes those fresh starts are hard. Those blank slates stay blank for a little too long. And your dreams start to suffer.
Twenty-something is not a synonym for “easy,” and it doesn’t mean “slacker.” Being a twenty-something means you’re a fighter, and a struggler, and a dreamer.
In this day and age, being a twenty-something means being a “millennial.” And being a millennial – well, to some people it means you need to be told things. It means that you need to be given list after list of “things twenty-somethings need to quit doing” or “things twenty-somethings need to know.” It means people who are barely out of their twenties (or are even still in their twenties) are trying to tell you the best way to live your life. It means people think that you think you’re entitled and lazy.
You know how to live your life. You know what fresh starts and blank slates and dreams look like. You know how to fight, and struggle, and dream. You know how to be exactly the kind of twenty-something you’re supposed to be.
I hope you don’t listen to them. I hope that every time you see another list about “being a twenty-something,” you take it with a grain of salt. I hope you take this post with a grain of salt. Every post that tells you to stop doing something or be different undermines you, and you deserve better than that. We millennials, we twenty-somethings, are amazing people. We will do amazing things, and we will change the world.
I hope you take some time to figure out what it means to you to be a twenty-something. What it means you can do, and be, and change.
And I hope you remember: fresh starts, blank slates, and dreams.