One of your favorite songs from years ago comes on as you eat at the local diner in a college town you stopped in. It’s from middle school and you laugh to yourself thinking about how you and your best friend sang it not knowing what it meant. That was almost fifteen years ago.
Almost fifteen years ago.
You stop mid-bite and look up to realize not a single worker is older than you. You were going to ask if this was a playlist since it had so many songs you used to love, but now horrified that it’s probably called “Throwbacks” you can’t. So instead you stare absently at the food and whisper to yourself, “Does this mean I am getting old?”
You have a job or are searching for one, your own place or looking for one. Your own things. Your own schedule. Your own life. And you realize maybe you really are an adult now.
There’s this strange paradox that hits you the moment you step into twenties. You’re still a child but at the same time . . . an adult? You were just a dumb teenager a few years and now everything you own is in your name, paid for by your money, made with your job. You’re thrust into the world with high expectations—either from yourself or from those around you—only to realize that adulthood is far messier and more complicated than you ever imagined.
It’s a game of paradoxes—tug-of-war between expectation and reality.
It feels like you’re expected to have everything figured out—a career, a relationship, wants—but half the time, you don't even know what you're supposed to be figuring out, as if time suddenly stopped the moment you turned twenty. You're supposed to know things you've never been taught. They call you a fraud, but act like you should have it all together, like you should know exactly what you're doing. It’s the decade where you’re suddenly responsible for everything, yet often feel like you’re responsible for nothing.
As a kid I had always imagined that by 23 I would have a successful career, a large home, married, have kids, a dog or two, and happy. That couldn’t be any further from reality. The truth is I feel like I am playing a big game of “make believe”. I watch former friends and classmates building their lives from behind a screen. Every weekend someone new is getting engaged, married, announcing a pregnancy, having a kid, or posting their kids, but it doesn’t seem real. It doesn’t seem like we’re the same age and only a few years ago sitting in the same classrooms and hanging out together.
Your 20s. No one mentioned how weird it is to be twenty-something. To watch the people you were closest with grow away and to see everyone at all different stages of life. They told you it would be the best time of your life. A decade of freedom, self-discovery, and boundless opportunities. But here’s the thing they don’t tell you: your 20s are hard. They’re confusing, overwhelming, and at times, downright awful.
No one told me that being in your 20s was less about living and more about surviving. You’re supposed to have everything together, but no one ever really does. They didn’t mention the nights I’d lay awake, questioning every decision, every step forward, feeling the weight of expectations crushing down on me.
You’re told to chase your dreams, but what happens when you’re not sure what those dreams are anymore? When the path you thought you were supposed to take suddenly doesn’t feel right, and you’re left scrambling to figure out what comes next. The career that looked perfect on paper but feels hollow inside. The job market is competitive, the bills are piling up, and sometimes it feels like everyone else has it all together except you.
And then there’s the loneliness. The feeling of being caught in a liminal space where you’re no longer a child but don’t quite feel like an adult either. You’re constantly navigating relationships that shift and change as you and your friends grow in different directions. The friends you swore would be there forever? Some of them fade away. The relationships that were supposed to be fulfilling? They leave you wondering if you were just going through the motions.
They didn’t mention how hard it was to hold it all together. That cracks would form beneath the weight of everyone’s expectations, of my own expectations. The anxiety that would gnaw at the edges of my mind. I was supposed to be building a life, but sometimes it felt like I was just holding on for dear life.
They don’t tell you that in your 20s, you’ll spend just as much time questioning yourself as you do trying to prove yourself. And maybe that’s the hardest part—realizing that the person you’re trying to prove something to is yourself.
“Surviving your 20s is sometimes nothing more glamorous than just holding on for dear life on the back of an inner tube like a kid being whipped around by a speedboat…And your only choice of survival is to just let go.” – Paul Angone, 101 Secrets For Your Twenties
The truth is, your 20s are a time of trial and error. You’ll make mistakes—big ones. You’ll doubt yourself more than you ever have before. You’ll experience heartbreak, rejection, and the realization that life doesn’t always go according to plan.
And that’s okay.
So if you’re in your 20s and feeling like you’re drowning, know that you’re not alone. They show the job, the apartment, the curated life on social media—they show the surface. No one shows how they lie awake or how they worry or how they are struggling. No one has it all figured out, no matter how perfect their life might look on the outside.
Your 20s are weird, they’re hard, and they’re confusing. But they’re also beautiful in their own chaotic way. They’re the years where you learn to navigate the complexities of life, where you start to understand that it’s okay to not have all the answers, and where you begin to embrace the uncertainty that comes with being in your 20s. It’s okay to feel lost. It’s okay to change your mind. It’s okay to take a different path than the one you thought you were on. Your 20s are about figuring out who you are, not who you think you’re supposed to be. It’s a time for growth, for learning, for discovering what truly matters to you.
I’m not sure when—or if—it starts to make sense. But here’s to the messy, unpredictable, and completely uncharted journey that is your 20s. We’re all in this together. Because maybe, just maybe, the only way this journey through our 20s feels a little less weird is to know someone else who’s just as lost as we are.
Embrace it, live it, and remember: it’s okay to not have it all together. You’ve got time.
If you’re reading this, thank you, truly. This was inspired forever ago by a note (that I can’t find now) & little conversation about how hard it is seeing everyone succeed in your 20s while you feel lost. It’s nice to know you can relate to people when it feels like you’re the only one sometimes. I don’t even feel like I included everything that could’ve been said because there is SO MUCH. Feel free to share your experience, I am here for you.
i loved reading this so much!! super comforting and relatable as another lost person in their twenties! the bit about all the things you thought you’d have by 23 (married, kids, a dog, a career etc) is so real! such a lovely read :)
My jaw dropped reading this in the same way you stopped mid bite at the start . I didn’t even clock how I had just got so used to the fact that people around me r having kids and getting engaged in their early twenties that I haven’t processed that .. people around me are getting ENGAGED and having KIDS . My third eye just opened