This is how it works, you're young until you're not.

Yesterday I read several articles on different things about being in your 20s and it made me start reflecting on my 20s. As I'll be 25 in 10 days, I figure now, with only half the data is the perfect time to tell the entire world what your 20s are all about. After all, doing things recklessly, haphazardly, with half the information is one of those things.

The most important thing to remember during your 20s: YOU ARE STILL A CHILD. When you are a teenager, you are granted that beautiful privilege of freedom via driving or no curfew or being able to vote or moving away from home. Once this happens you think to yourself, "I am a grown up now. It's finally happened." Then, you get a little bit of responsibility, this could happen at the same time, it could be bills, or living on your own, or going to college and being in charge of your own schedule. When this happens you think again, "I guess I wasn't a grown up before, but now, surely I am a grown up." And you are still wrong. Then maybe a little bit of life actually happens, and when this happens, you're weary, all you think is, "grown up?" And maybe you are at this point, or maybe you aren't. Most likely you aren't, but you have more frequent grown up moments. The fact that you question whether you are or not, and aren't sure of it, is the first of these moments.

The realization that I was still a child with some grown up moments was a big one. I remember exactly when I started questioning the fact that I was surely a grown up and over the course of the time that followed embraced the fact that I am a child very good at pretending to be a grown up.

Let's rewind a little bit and talk about my twenties. Two months before I turned 20, my parents got a divorce. One month before I turned 20, I moved out of my childhood home never to look back. I had lived a charmed life, up until this point; everything had been perfect and happy. Really, after the initial adjustment phase, I realized I still had a happy perfect little life. That summer I lived with my grandma and my mom, I spent time working at a restaurant, watching day time tv with my grandma and goofing off with friends. Then I moved away to the big bad city of Chicago in the fall.

Chicago isn't actually big and bad... Well, maybe it is, but my experience of it has yet to prove so. However, when you grow up your entire life in a cornfield, moving somewhere like Chicago is a big deal, liking somewhere like Chicago is an even bigger deal. I did both. Living in a high rise Chicago apartment, being 20, and having had something difficult happen to me (my parent's divorce, which, in retrospect, wasn't so very difficult), I knew I was surely a grown up. A few months later, life slapped me in the face and said, "You think you're a grown up? You think you've experienced sadness? Good one." And my grandma died. To this day, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. When my grandma died, she was the only person I could talk to about anything. Prior to my parent's divorce, my mom had been that person, but then with the divorce so came a whole bunch of crap, and suddenly I couldn't talk to my mom about everything. I could still talk to her about most things, just not everything.  My grandma filled that hole. She also always knew the right thing to say, and I'm not embellishing here, she really did. Then she was gone, and I shut down. After living through this, struggling through it, I was positive I was a grown up.

Time went on, and things changed and I was still in school, and my graduation date was being shoved back again due to my procrastinating tendencies. And this is when that moment where I realized I was still a child happened.It wasn't a big epiphany, I didn't come to the conclusion myself. In true childlike fashion, I had to be told.

 I was really stressed and overwhelmed by school, so much so, that all my anxiety ticks had started showing up again, which just made me worry more and made them more prominent, which made me worry more and so on forever. I decided it would be best to adjust my 4-year plan and maybe drop a class so I didn't die from a brain aneurysm caused by hypertension caused by stress at the ripe old age of 21. I went to go see my advisor, he had been in the film industry and there was grey hair in his dreadlocks. Yes, my advisor had dreadlocks. We also spent the first 10 minutes of my appointment talking about Batman. After that we started talking about dropping classes, next semester's classes and my 4-year plan. As I realized in order to regain my saneness and maintain it, I would have to add AT LEAST another year to my 4-year plan, I started having the inward feelings of a panic attack. Now, the funny thing about panic attacks and me, are that if I do something else to release some tension, like screaming or crying, I won't start hyperventilating. Naturally, my eyes start to well up and I try to croak out that I don't want to add another year, I am already too old for college. At this, he looks at me and asks my age, and when I reply 21, he laughs. He laughs, and says, "Honey, you're still a child." At this juncture I am just trying to get out of here as quickly as possible, because I can't believe I cried in front of this guy I hardly knew, and it doesn't matter what happens with classes, and my heart is beating so fast, and I still might start having a full blown hyperventilating panic attack. So, I just agree with everything he says and leave as soon as possible. In addition to all the other stuff going on in my head (my doomed future, my impending panic/heart attack, my embarrassment) I remember a twinge of offense at his words. This guy doesn't know me, I'm 21, that's basically a million in college years, I've lived some real life, I've been to other countries, I moved away from home, my grandma died and ended my world, I am a grown up, not a child, I am an adult. This guy was truly my advisor TO LIFE.

It just took that one little sentence to change my whole perspective of my 20s. Because with every year and every experience I've had so far, it has made me look back, shake my head, and realize, "I was just a child when I did all that. What was I thinking playing grown up?" Right now, yes, I think I'm a grown up. I've made a lot of advances in my life, and I'm looking to make a lot more. I have a full time job. I live on my own and never plan on living with my parents again. I depend on my parents no more than I would depend on a friend. I am responsible for two lives besides my own (my cats). But I realize, now, no matter how many things I mark off the Grown Up Check List, or I achieve that makes me feel grown up, after some time has passed, I am going to look back, shake my head and think, "I was just a child when I did all that. What was I thinking playing grown up?"















Side Bar: The title is from Regina Spektor's song On The Radio, it is a great song about life, and I listened to it three times during the course of planning and writing this blog.