What Life is Like When You're 20 Years Old

  Being 20 feels like you have every opportunity in front of you, but only half of the knowledge to make the most of it. Like the ripest apple in the entire orchard is right above your head but your ladder can’t seem to reach the full distance.

     Being 20 feels invincible. The “hell yeah I’ll take a 10th shot” type of indestructible. The driving 60 in a 25 at midnight type of impenetrable. The wedding-crashing, after party-hopping type of indomitable.

     Being 20 feels lonely at times. It’s a world filled with immediate and constant connection yet seemingly no one who quite understands the inner workings of your mind.

     Being 20 feels a little lost. As if you’re driving slowly through a thick cloud of fog waiting for the road to unveil itself and lead you home.

     Being 20 feels responsible. The doing your own laundry, editing your own papers, paying your own bills type of accountable.

     Being 20 feels important. No longer a teenager, you’re finally figuring out your role in society. Your actions have purpose and significance.

     It’s such a strange halfway point between longing to finally have an independant life with the perfect job and never wanting to leave the comfort of your childhood home. Like you’re constantly choosing between sitting at the adult or the kid table at family functions.
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     It finally feels like you have a voice, yet no one seems to listen. You may think you’ve experienced the world but there will always be someone who has seen more and isn’t afraid to remind you.

     It’s like you have a constant get-out-of-jail-free card that can be redeemed when you get a little bit too tipsy, accidentally sleep through a chem class, or change your major for the 5th time because your actions aren’t always considered irresponsible when you’re only 20 and have so much more to learn.

     It’s that heart pounding, adrenaline rushing, head spinning feeling you get when you truly throw caution to the wind and kiss that girl, dance when you know the whole room is watching, or jump out of that plane.

     When you’re 20, the world seems big. Not in an impending, overwhelming cloud of doubt way, but like an enthralling novel with endless possibilities and outcomes that you eagerly flip the pages to find out where you’ll be transported to next. The life in your eyes has yet to be dulled by rejections, disappointments, and unhappy endings. Each day is a blank slate for you to create your own destiny.

     Both endlessly exciting and terrifying as hell, being 20 has been the greatest oxymoron I have ever known.