Decade: Desperation

Reflecting on my first year in my 20s.

I predicted my first year in my twenties would feel surreal. What I mean is that I expected to feel like a glorified teenager for the rest of my life—that entering this crisp new decade would be no different. Somehow, I was both right and wrong.

I feel older than I’ve ever been, an awareness so intense it has become my identity. I know that I don’t know much of value, but I carry a weight I’m certain I’ll never shake. I understand this is growing up, yet I question if I’m late to it. Is this weight normal? Have I only now begun to feel the heaviness of life?

In the past few years, I’ve witnessed incredible things. I’ve also felt great devastation. Gratitude lingers in me more than ever with each passing day. So does fear.

I never thought I’d put much weight on entering a new decade of age. I always imagined it as just another extension of my teenage years. If you think about it, twenty is still a toddler in the grand scheme of life. We still don’t listen well. We’re still learning survival—this time, under the weight of government systems and self-imposed expectations. And, above all, we’re still learning to self-soothe. The difference now is consciousness. We are more aware of our environment, which somehow makes everything more difficult.

I can see now why people feel inclined to label chunks of time in advance, to attach superstition to them. But I also believe that trying to define a period before it has unfolded—before it has fully developed, before we have fully developed—is a terrible, self-fulfilling prophecy.

That being said, as I close out my first year in my twenties, I think I can sum up the decade to come.

---

Acts of Desperation

Everything I do feels like an act of desperation.

Arguably, how could it not? Arguably, how could it ever not?

I am going to school full-time. I am working full-time. I am desperate for financial validation. I am desperate for academic validation. I started going to spin class. I tried pole dancing. I am desperate to feel whole. I am desperate to feel spontaneous. I am desperate to become something through the small things. I am desperate to dream big but stay realistic, to keep my head in the clouds and my feet on the ground, to live in the ever-present buzz of my itching fingertips.

I am desperate to be desperate—because it keeps me alive.

I think this will be the essence of my twenties. I think, by my thirties, this desperation will dwindle and settle, no longer a wild hunger but a steady undercurrent. It will become part of me—a refined, charming, softened version of what it is now. Much less jerky, much less exaggerated.

My cheeks will be rosy with desperation, and I will grow into it. I will define it through embarrassment, pain, love, and longing. For better or worse, I will.

After all, I am desperate to.

---

I feel something on the horizon, a sort of pivot ahead. I am not quite certain of its energy yet. What I do believe is that it will be a great impact on my life, even if it turns out to be one small decision or one small inconvenience.

I have grown accustomed to feeling greatness in fleeting moments and small actions more than ever in this last year. I believe this is the frantic feeling of your 20’s.

I find it to feel like a static pulse in my veins. Like carbon dioxide is in my bloodstream both lifting me up and weighing me down. Giving me a sappy high and a real pull down to reality. I feel anxious and brave as I am mourning what is behind me and what is to come.

I feel more complex than ever yet such clarity. I am 20 and I know nothing.

I am desperate for anything and nothing.

---

I am learning to hold the contradictions, to live inside the static.

I go to sleep breathless some nights and wake up with peace in my chest.

I talk to myself like a child, then have expectations for myself like I’ve lived three lives already.

I’m twenty and I am everything.

I’m twenty and I am nothing.

I’m twenty—and somehow, that feels like enough.

---

If you could tell your 20 year old self anything, what would it be?