My 20th birthday is on Tuesday, three days from the day I’m writing this article. It’s a bittersweet feeling to leave behind an entire decade and era of my life and enter what could be one of the best or worst years. Depending on who you talk to, everyone has a different stance on your 20s: lonely, and independent, but full of new friendships, life lessons, and potentially long-lasting love. However, as I reflect on my teenage years, my goal for this new decade is to avoid placing any expectations, good or bad, on them.
My teenage years were not at all what the writers, singers, and poets write about. I have always felt a bit behind from the rest of the pack. I didn’t experience the trauma of a middle school/high school “first love” or the innocence of a teenage relationship. I’ve always been a very independent person and have surrounded myself with friends and family over proper love interests. I’m also very picky, not a fan of the shallow, flimsy relationships I saw the people around me go through. As a romance reader girlie at heart, I’ve never wanted to settle for anything less than an epic love story, with some sort of underlying trope bringing me and my special person together. Alas, that isn’t real life, or at least not real life for me, so it has been a rather lonely life when it comes to that area of relationships.
I always tend to look towards the future and fixate on my aspirations and goals. When I was in middle school, I looked forward to high school, and when I was in high school, I looked forward to college. To be fair, I’ve glamorized the idea of going to college since I was very young, obsessively watching college decision reaction videos on YouTube since sixth grade. I’ve always wanted to experience a life of independence, where there are no rules or restrictions (for the most part) on making my own life choices. I come from a very sheltered, moderately strict household, so college was like a symbol of freedom and independence in a way.
Still, coming to UC Berkeley, while I have enjoyed many experiences I’ve had here, it’s not at all as amazing and freeing as I thought it’d be. I come from a neighboring town by the school, so that also plays a role in my ability to feel entirely independent. I love living near home and having access to my family whenever I want it, but I also don’t feel as if I’m starting fresh. Maybe it’s the idea of Berkeley Goggles or maybe it’s just that the dating pool in college is far from romantic and happily ever after in this generation, but I haven’t found a person who has piqued my interest romantically to the point where I can see myself settling.
So now, I’m turning 20 with no relationship or heartbreak experience under my belt, which doesn’t forebode well for this decade. It’s not like I’ve never done anything in my life or avoided putting myself out there, but I haven’t had the sickly sweet love that some of my friends have.
This is the decade where I’m supposed to attempt to find “the one” if I want to get married by 27, my childhood dream of my wedding age. I just don’t foresee it happening anymore. I’m jaded and cynical about love and about my 20s as a whole. Once I graduate from Berkeley, I plan to take a gap year and work before heading off to law school, hopefully on the East Coast. My current friendships, which I value so highly, will be weakened by the growing distance and separating routes we will be taking, and I can’t stomach the idea of feeling completely and totally alone. I didn’t have the best experiences with friendships in my early teenage years and it’s been so rewarding and genuinely uplifting to have found friends now that I feel support me and build me up and make me a better person. Losing those relationships will hurt more than I feel any romantic heartbreak could.
“You’ll make new friends.” Where? Law school, I suppose, but that just reinforces the same sick cycle I’m in now. We’ll all go on to practice at different places and in different areas of the world and who will I be without those people? If I’m not thrust into an environment like college where making friendships is incredibly important, I’m not going to find opportunities to build those bonds. I’m an introvert at heart and, while I’m sure there will be nice coworkers or neighbors, it won’t be the same.
I’d like to move on and focus on the positive possibilities that may come with entering my 20s. I will hopefully get a job doing something I’m passionate about — but in the legal field, who knows where I’ll end up? If I do end up finding a significant other, I suppose I could settle down and start a family — but what if that makes me more restricted in my freedom and independence? Personally, I cannot see myself living in a white picket fence home with children and a dog. I don’t think I would be happy with this lifestyle, as it’s not for everyone.
All of this said and done, I want to go into this new decade of my life with an open mind, devoid of any biases and hopes and dreams. I want to see where life takes me and lose the expectations that I’ve placed on these years. I don’t know how it will turn out. I do know that the life I had expected for my teenage years did not turn out the way I thought it would at all. So why would I expect that my 20s would be any different?
In these last few days of “teenage-dom,” I have felt sick to my stomach, wanting to focus on all the lasts — last meal as a teenager, last party as a teenager, last cry session as a teenager. I want to watch all my favorite movies again for the last time as a teenager and try everything on my middle school bucket list before I turn 20. Still, this is unrealistic, as there are only three days left and it only just recently hit me that I’m leaving these rose-colored years behind. So instead, I have redirected to highlighting all my firsts as a girl in her 20s: first post-grad job, first friendships in the “real world,” and first real relationship. It’s not going to be all fun and games anymore, not that it ever was, and I’m willing to take that head-on.