Twenties on Silks

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Apparently you aren’t supposed to have it all figured out at 20. Check out my video!

Closing out one of our last classes, one of my magazine professors put forth the question, or rather concept of a work-life balance. He asked something along the lines of, Do you want your work to be your life, or your life to be your life? Recently, this concept has been sticking with me like hair to lip gloss on a windy day. Being passed up for ideal internships, I truly believed I would have excelled at it because I’m not a graduate, and the job market being, well, unforgiving, I am left without the career/academic-oriented structure I have found validates me. I am left still. while everything else around me stays in motion. 

 I have always been the type of person who revolves almost every facet of her self around what's next academically or career-wise. How many hours do I need to section out a day sitting at my desk with my door closed, listening to instrumental jazz on noise-cancelling headphones, while my roommates' giggles permeate through from the living room? Wishing I could be there with them, knowing that I just cant. How many titles I can rack up for extracurriculars so some recruiter recognizes my potential? How many credits can I take on a semester, and how many on-campus jobs can I have without burning out?  

 What can I do now that can benefit my success in my field in the future? Ive been told countless times that the fields I am working in are dying, pages of articles and books burned to ashes being tossed into waters no one wants to swim in anymore. That journalists cannot be trusted, and no one has time anymore to pick up a book unless it's being read to them on their phones by some monotone voice. 

Thinking back to what my professor said, I have realized in this time of uncertainty and well, time, that I have revolved so much of my young life around the older version of myself, hoping she's wearing a power suit somewhere in NYC carrying herself admirably while also carrying a coach bag she could pay for by herself. While that version of myself is still very much at the forefront, this present version of myself- someone so consumed with what she's going to be and how much money she's going to make- has shut out the idea of WHO she's going to be. 

Discussing the issue of my early twenties in therapy, my therapist conspired that the universe might just be giving me a break. Maybe now is the time to just enjoy being 20, instead of worrying and working towards a title you'll have at 40. And though I have been blaming myself and dissecting what I could have done to be better, part of me, with much resistance- believes her. I have been so coiled in the fast-paced that slow and steady seem ridiculous to me. In two weeks, I turn 21. I'm not even legal to drink yet, and I feel so stuck at 20. That's also extremely ridiculous to me. I'm sure alot of people my age can relate that almost everything feels ridiculous right now. 

I have been following a very narrow path, one foot behind the other as if walking through my life was a tightrope. Though my balance has been exceptional so far, I have never really looked to my left or right. Only down so I dont trip and fall. Taking a peek at my sides, I have thought of going into law using my communications degree to propel me as a comms lawyer, or social work while also using both my communications and writing degree to hone in on helping women, my field niche since starting university.  

 But now, in a position where my knees are quivering and staring downward is giving me a crick in my neck, maybe it's time for me to try the silks. The silks of my twenties. I'm not going to stop writing or stop dreaming that the click of my kitten heels in an office would be an alarm of importance someday. But I am going to start focusing more on strengthening my sense of self and romanticizing the opportunity of being my age, so that that woman has sturdy legs to strut on. I am going to write because I love it, not because I have an assignment due. I am going to take on side hustles that dont necessarily need to be added to my resume. I am going to believe that time is on my side, and my time right now is better spent twirling than scheduled steps. 

So no, my plans aren't checking off every bullet I had on my type A list. And yes, even getting a nanny job for the summer is hard. But maybe things are hard right now because my calling is higher. As my best friend Maddy has told me time and time again, rejection is redirection- and though right now rejection feels like a direct attack on my goals and all the work I have put in, I know she is right, because someone like me and that 40 year old version of me in a power suit, isn't friends with wrong people.