It’s 10 PM on a Tuesday night and I am sat on the bare wooden floor of my new apartment, clutching at a bowl of instant ramen while surrounded by twelve cardboard boxes and a miscellaneous pair of socks. I’m staring at the clutter of disassembled furniture pieces that is “supposedly” my new IKEA couch, completely and utterly defeated by the last two hours of futile construction. It’s my first night in my new apartment and it’s my first time living alone.
I had dreamt of this moment for years, starting from when I watched a Zoella house tour vlog on YouTube for the first time back in middle school. It would be perfect – I would have my own space, carefully curate the art on my walls, build floor to ceiling bookshelves, even coordinate the shades of black, cream, and beige that I had pictured my apartment to be. Perhaps it would be in New York, or maybe Seattle, or even London if I was lucky. I would become a regular at the corner coffee shop, spend my mornings at work, and come home to an apartment that I called my own. In other words, I had romanticized my life to be a Netflix show before I even knew what that meant. At 13, living alone seemed to be the ultimate culmination of liberty and autonomy, of personal and professional success, and thus I spent the better part of my afternoons in 8th grade creating Pinterest boards of home decor ideas and interior design inspirations.
Now, nine years later, I’m squinting at the reflection staring back at me in my $6 Target mirror (my glasses have disappeared amidst the chaos of moving) and needless to say, it’s a pathetic sight. My hair has fashioned itself into a nest, I’m donning a massive toothpaste stain on my hoodie that I failed to notice all day, and my mascara has smudged under my eyes, creating a look that’s eerily similar to a Tim Burton character. I’m in a terrible state of disreputableness. For once, I’m glad I can’t find my glasses. This scene is nothing like I’d imagined my life to turn out and it’s not a terrible exaggeration to say that the moment seemed to call for more of a lamentation rather than a celebration. “Adulthood,” in reality, appeared to consist of an empty fridge, an air mattress, no clue whatsoever about what you should be doing with your life, and a solid $50 in savings.
Everyone talks about milestones – the first day of preschool. The rough years of puberty. The day you graduate high school. How important the college years are. Your first corporate job. But no one ever told me about the difficult in-betweens, not in the copious books I consumed nor the depth of Netflix research I conducted. No one warned me that this transient period between adolescence and adulthood is stomach-churning and gut-wrenching and so, so, so painful at times. When you wake up and suddenly go from “having so much time” to being “two years too late.” When your friends are suddenly graduating and landing big-kid jobs, but you’re still watching The Office reruns, eating ramen in your pajamas. When it seems like everyone is playing a part really aggressively and you feel completely alone – just know that it’s okay. The 20s are the most pivotal, ambiguous, riveting, transformative, and powerful period in your life. The discomfort you feel is good. And on those days when your progress doesn’t feel like enough, when you can’t help but compare yourself to others, just think back where you stood a few hundred nights ago. Remember the uncertainty you once felt and allow yourself to appreciate how far you’ve come since then, standing on the other side of your fears.