This post actually inspired from the latest C-Drama I am in love with, The Early Spring! I write about it HERE and you can read there. Other than in love with the drama, I actually love the transformation of the heroin, Zhang Tao. Suddenly it's flashback to my 20s.
Being a girl in your 20s is such a strange season of life. You think you are an adult because you can earn your own money, make your own decisions, go out without asking permission and maybe even pay your own bills. But deep down, you are still figuring out who you are. You are learning how to be independent while secretly wishing someone would tell you that you are doing okay. You are making career decisions without really knowing where your career will take you.
You are falling in love, getting your heart broken, meeting new people, losing old friends and slowly learning that not everyone you love is meant to stay. And somehow, everyone seems to expect you to have your life figured out.
“What's your plan?”
“When are you getting married?”
“When are you buying a house?”
“What do you want to do with your career?”
You smile and say, “I'm not sure yet.” But inside, you are thinking: “I'm trying. I'm really trying.”
You scroll through social media and see someone your age getting married, someone buying a house, someone travelling the world, someone becoming a manager, someone starting a business, someone looking like they have everything together. And suddenly, your own life feels small.
You start wondering whether you are late. Whether you made the wrong choices or you should have achieved more by now. But here's something I wish more girls knew:
You are not late.
Your life is not a race against the people you went to school with. You don't have to reach the same milestones at the same age. Your 20s are not supposed to be a perfectly planned decade. They are supposed to be a decade of becoming.
Becoming more independent.
Becoming more confident.
Becoming more aware of what you want and what you absolutely don't want.
You will choose the wrong job. Trust the wrong person. Stay too long in relationships. Spend money you shouldn't have spent. Say yes when you should have said no. Say no when you wish you had said yes. You will look back at some of your decisions and wonder,
“What was I thinking?”
And that's okay. You were learning. Sometimes the only way to know what is right for you is to experience what isn't.
This one hurts. Some friendships that felt permanent will slowly become distant. Sometimes there won't even be a big fight.
Life just happens.
Different priorities.
Different places.
Different versions of yourselves. And you'll realize that growing apart doesn't always mean someone was a bad person. Sometimes you simply aren't walking in the same direction anymore.
Let them go with love. And keep walking.
You don't have to get married because everyone else is getting married. You don't have to have children because your friends are having children. You don't have to stay in a job just because it looks impressive. You don't have to prove that you are successful by constantly being busy. And you certainly don't have to shrink yourself to make other people comfortable.
Your life belongs to you.
Take your time.
Build something that actually feels like yours. As for me, it's my blog, Borneo Working Mom and my family.
Take the pictures.
Wear the beautiful outfits.
Go on the trip if you can afford it.
Eat the cake.
Laugh until your stomach hurts.
Stay up talking to your friends.
Fall in love.
Try something completely new.
Make mistakes.
Start again.
There will come a day when you look back at the girl you were in your 20s and realise she was doing much better than she thought.
She was brave.
She was trying.
She was carrying things nobody knew about.
She was figuring life out one decision at a time. And maybe she didn't have everything figured out.
But she kept going. So, if you're a girl in your 20s reading this:
You don't need to have your whole life figured out yet.
You are allowed to change your mind, you are allowed to start over, you are allowed to take a different path. You are allowed to be ambitious and still want a quiet life. You are allowed to want marriage. You are allowed to not want marriage. You are allowed to dream big. You are allowed to rest. Your 20s are not the final version of you.
They are just the beginning.
And one day, you'll look back and realise
you were becoming her all along.
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