A Letter to my Twenties

Dear my twenties,

As I write this now you are merely a week away, and fuck has your presence hit me like a truck. I will be honest, you are looking promising, but there are things I do wish you will bring me.

You have a lot to live up to really, my teens bought me some very good grades, some really fucking good friends, albeit a lot of these didn’t last, they were still very big parts of my life. I wish for more consistency in my twenties I think, I seem to have gone through a lot of mental phases in my life and I believe to have outgrown that now. I want the friends I have left to last forever, I love them dearly; I want to stop flip-flopping in my passions.

As I leave my nineteenth year, I really do believe things are going well. I have a lot going for me with university this time around, but it will be you that will take me to graduation. It is you that is joining me as I finally begin to care about things again. I am writing regularly; I am editing for a fucking newspaper! What a dream. It will be you who will watch me as I cry and stress and ultimately get to the place in life I want to be.

I don’t know what that place is yet, I am still toying with careers, but no matter where I end up, you will take me there.

You will see me be happy. Happier than I have been in my life, as I take control back of the things that I love and find the place in the world that I belong in. You will watch me build that life, make that name for myself, get that success I have wanted since I was a child.

You will see me cry. More times than I would like probably, because at the heart of it, being twenty is terrifying me when I still feel sixteen. I will have to face the world, grow up truly, You will be with me when I move out of my family home. You will be with me, likely, when I experience pregnancy and motherhood, though I hope you bring me this much closer to when you are handing me over to thirty. You will watch me get rejected, and rejected, and fail more than I ever have in my life as I set myself up for life. I am going to hate it, but you will watch me get through it.

My teens brought me love. My first, my biggest, hopefully my last. I hope you stay true to the latter. I hope you bring me marriage, and happiness, and comfort in my love. As you approach, being in love is hard. I am doing it because fuck I will not let it go no matter how irrational my thoughts become, no matter how many petty fights we have, but I hope you bring me the peace that follows.

I find it odd, I do, moving into another decade of life, walking around and telling people ‘I’m twenty’ when I feel (and look) much younger. I thank my teens for everything it brought me, getting me into writing, letting me experience the world in a way that got me to where I am, protecting me from so much. I hope you bring me as much comfort in myself as I have in my surroundings right now. I thank my teens for getting me into a good job and a good degree, though it was hard, I am ecstatic with where I have ended this era.

I hope with my twenties, I can celebrate everyone else in my life too, I am in the decade where my friends are getting married and starting lives and succeeding just like I am, I want you to bring me every chance to celebrate these things with them and do them all right alongside everyone I love.

I never thought I would be where I am. Doing the things I have always adored, experiencing so many new things, in love and genuinely happy with life as I find little ways to improve myself. It has always been little steps, and I think finally I may have gotten the hang of it. If you try to do too much at once, you will shut down. I give that to you, well to me, remember that fact as you take me through life, especially when I feel like I cannot possibly do it all.

I will be welcoming you into my life in style. It is cold, God is it cold, but where better to freeze your tits off than in Winter Wonderland? I’m excited for my trip to London, it’s my first birthday entirely without my parents. That thought terrifies me, and I feel awful as I am also leaving my dad behind on his birthday. But it is nice, it is nice to be able to make my own adventures and my own memories as I enter true adulthood. And then I will reminisce on my childhood in tune with Matilda: The Musical. It sounds perfect, doesn’t it? I hope it is so.

I have always looked forward to growing up, and now that I am here, I am scared. But all I can say is I hope it is worth it. Even if it is the hardest decade of my life, I hope at the end of it all I am exactly where I want to be. I think I have the passion to make that so, I just beg you help me along.

Welcome, get comfortable, and please be nice as you kick my teens into the corner of my mind. It’s very nice to have you here, well almost.

Ash x

Ps. It’s been very nice to swear while I write again

Pps. It has been a while, how are you all doing?

Ppps. I probably won’t catch you before, so Merry Christmas!