I started writing this post nine days before the 10th of November, which is my birthday. I have little to no idea when it's going to be finished, and how the writing process will go down: I might type it away until 4 AM, taking advantage of the fact that I don't have work the next day, or I might throw in a paragraph here and there in between lectures, studying and failed attempts at cooking a decent meal. I do know that whilst writing, I bounce from an odd state of mind to another. Hope, anxiety, determination, fear, polar opposites that have dominated my life for so many years now - and definitely defiance because I hoped I'd feel different at 20.
If you asked me back in freshman year of high school how I would look, act and feel like at the age of 20... well, I would probably pretty much describe the person that I am today. I am one of the few lucky bitches who won the puberty lottery: I have indeed become the version of me my 14-year-old past self was hopelessly dreaming of day in and day out, barely surviving the shitshow that high school was at the time. I'd go even further and admit that yes, I am in fact happy with my life as it is at the moment. Things are going well. I am doing fine. Obviously, there are aspects I wouldn't mind seeing improve, but they come from a place of frustrating perfectionism. There is only so much I can do to satisfy myself through my mere existence. At this point in my life, I am not enough for myself, but I am enough.
I'm at the point in my life where I turn 20. A fifth of my desired life expectancy is gone. Not disappeared as much as disintegrated, then morphed into something else. I grew to be a stranger from the person I was five, ten and fifteen years ago. Definitely not a complete stranger, but too different to be familiar either. And the process was painful and emotional, but revelatory and refreshing indeed. I'd like to think I got to this point in my life where I am ready to say: I don't regret anything. I won't waste any more time on thinking back and wondering how things would've turned out if... Why would I give a damn? Things haven't happened the way I'd try to envision them right now. They haven't and they were washed off the shore by the waves and trying to grasp them back is futile. For years now, I've given myself the chance to see how living with such burdens of memories and questions unanswered on my shoulders felt like, and I've had enough of the experience to understand. I taught myself this lesson and I beat myself with a stick a bit throughout, but now I know enough. So now, I'm giving myself the chance to leave it all behind and have a fresh start.
For my 20th birthday, I am celebrating by giving myself the gift of five different lessons I think I've learned during my life. Now that I feel like I know them, I will make an objective out of religiously following them as I grow mature and wander and explore life further. They feel like good lessons to me, and if they're not, this would be my chance to find out. These lessons go as follows:
Admit that I am a powerhouse.
I do know my shit. I can do things, and sometimes, I even do things well. I have qualities and strong points and talents and abilities. I am special! I've never had trouble saying these things to other people. Seeing the good and the unique in others always came very easy to me, but I've never been that good at doing the very same thing with myself. Looking inwards at all times, I couldn't appreciate the skill and passion I put in my endeavours (and that others praised out loud) because I was the only one able to see the other side of the coin: the insecurity that I felt every time I took initiative or expressed my opinion, the need to compare my performance to others', the crippling fear of failure. This crazy mix of feelings is normal, but taken in big doses can do great harm, and this is what happened to me. Before I knew it, I've spent actual years blindly refusing to look at my success, and instead obsessively focusing on the times I failed or didn't do that one more thing I could've done.
Every day from now on, I will stubbornly focus on the good instead. I will pat myself on the back and give myself more hugs and brownie points for every teeny-tiny achievement. I will selectively highlight all the good I did in the past, and take pride in every single instance I did well, no matter how much 'well' that would be. And frankly, I've had my moments. I studied my butt off to get into the university I wanted, and went through the whole application process by myself. I moved to a country I've never been to before on my own, and made a true life here that makes me wake up with a smile on my face every single morning. I've worked my way through stupid teenage drama, people who tried to bring me down so many times, situations in which I thought I didn't have a word to say and a job in which I was a doormat for the customers I smiled at every time I took an order. I was strong, and clever, and determined, and I am all these things still, only that now, I admit it loudly and proudly. And I won't do any differently in the future.
Make a priority out of being healthy.
As a child and teenager, I was blessed to live with a family that took much interest in living a healthy lifestyle. Anything from eating the right food to sleeping enough to engaging in diverse activities every day to keep our minds active - my parents taught me pretty much everything. For long I felt constrained by this apparently picture-perfect way of living: rebellious, hormonal me wanted to stay up late every night, grab junk food after an evening out and eat it right before bedtime, fill up all her time to the extent where I didn't have any left to take good care of myself anymore. Starting university and moving out to live pretty much on my own gave me the freedom that I've always craved, but that soon proved to be dangerous. It was only a matter of time until I started feeling the effects of sleepless nights, excessive studying and eating crap. But because mulling over this would kind of contradict my previous point about seeing the bright side in my actions, I'd like to add that yes, it could be worse and yes, I am actively doing a real effort to sort my life out back to what it was at home.
I want to and will live a healthy and balanced life. I will sleep enough, eat enough and drink enough water. I will find balance in socialising with people in my life and spending healthy time on my own, doing the things that make me happy and make my life better. Damn it, I will exercise more. I will take care of both my physical and mental health, and I will pay more attention to my body and mind for any warning signs that tell me to slow down, take a break, take it easy. Because I owe myself the best in what I do, I owe myself this, as well. And it might not be easy, but I'd like to think it will all be worth it in the long run.
Cut down on thinking about the future.
If past makes me feel frustrated, future terrifies me. I got to a point in my life where I can safely say, I have absolutely no idea where I will be one year from now. Future is a big, dark, wide-toothed monster which likes to crawl from under my bed every once in a while and remind me that I don't know what I'm supposed to do next with my life. Should I carry on with my education and develop an academic career? Should I finish my degree as soon as possible and accept the first job I can get my hands on? Where should I live? Should I get married? Do I want to play it safe or risk it all? And sometimes, my worries about the future get very specific. Sometimes, the future I am scared of is tomorrow. Sometimes, I shake at the thought of anxiety keeping me up for another night, and most of the times, I don't know how well I will feel the next day and, as a consequence, how willing I will be to carry on living like nothing happened, like I don't actually feel like shit. My fear of future comes in many forms, just like future likes to exist in so many different versions. Each more frightening than another because I can predict or anticipate none of them.
20-year-old me wants to give less of a fuck about the future. Truth is, I know for sure future is going to come, whether I like it or not. Future will knock on the door faster or slower than I might expect, but it will nevertheless and there is not a single thing I can do about it. I seem to have made all the right decisions until now because I am happy where I am, right? And I made these decisions by staying true to myself and to what I wanted, and through curiosity and determination. So if I hold on to these three things that essentially brought me in this place of happiness and satisfaction, I should be just fine, right? This is all I have anyway, these are all the cards I can play in this tricky game with rules I will never be able to understand or follow. Logically drawing a conclusion from here, I have zero reasons to care about the future beyond the limits of planning and trying out new things - and this is essentially what I am going to do. Plan, assess my options, risk every now and then - do exactly what I am capable of doing and nothing more. If I am to be more precise, I will give myself exactly 20 minutes a day to worry about the future as much as I want; but when the time is up, I push all the crumpled papers in the trash bin and move on. I will focus on the present and make the most out of the now, because this is my stage, this is the one thing I can influence as much as I want. Now I can make choices that can either push me forward or draw me back, now I do things and now I learn from them. Living the present is what I choose to do - and now if I think about it, it is my only available choice.
Let go.
By this point you might have already realised: I am planning on letting go of many, many things. Reflection over the past and worries about the future, focusing on negativity and succumbing to threats to my self-discipline. Now, letting go is one complex action to take, and I'd like to think it's liberating as much as it's terrifying. I feel odd about letting go in general, and I'm known among my friends for my nostalgic attitude towards pretty much everything in life, may it be good or bad. I find it difficult to turn my back and walk away - wouldn't this mean betraying something or someone I once cared enough for to make them a part of my life? If I decide to carry on without them, how can I still be the person that I once was if this one thing is gone? If I lose things or people, I'm actually afraid I'll lose myself. Now, since I already established that I am offering myself a fresh start, my identity now becomes independent from all things existing in my life prior to said fresh start. It would be ridiculous of me to try and deny entire parts of my existence, experiences I've had and people I've shared things with. Instead, I'm offering myself the opportunity to take distance - for so long I didn't know I was entitled to this, too.
I let go of contemplation of my past, of the things I did and I could've done differently, the people I allowed in my life when I should've known they were trouble, any wrong done to me and any wrong I did myself. I let go of my fear of the future, the desperation I feel when my plans don't initially add up, the insecurity I feel when people seem to judge my decisions and choices. I let go of negativity and the bad. I won't feel personally offended next time somebody doesn't agree with me, and I will accept the fact that me and some people probably shouldn't keep in touch anymore. I won't bother to think back to all the high school drama, and all the times me and other people were stupid enough to try and push each other underground - we just didn't know any better. I won't bother to look twice at the next person being a complete dick to me - they might just have a bad day and I am collateral damage. Next time one of my bullet journal spreads turns out all wonky, I will glue fresh paper over, start again, not think about what a terrible artist I actually am. I am doing myself a favour and decluttering my mind - life is crazy enough as it is without me trying to drive myself insane.
Be alone with myself.
Back a few paragraphs above, I mentioned spending healthy time on my own. As an introvert who loves attention, I am facing a social dilemma almost every single day: I love being alone, but I can't stand not having people around. Lack of communication drives me insane. Two completely contradictory needs clash together and demand to be fulfilled at the same time, and that's where I start to feel uncomfortable, awkward, tense and sometimes become a very bad and moody friend. Once I started university, I achieved a thing I have always wanted desperately, and never thought I would have: a true clique of friends. A group of people I could spend each and every day with, in adventures throughout our university experience. We had our own group chat, our own inside jokes and nicknames, our weekly activities together, even our own table at the campus cafeteria (oddly enough, the table was changing all the time, it was the formation of the group that was always constant). I became infatuated with this group of friends, and made a goal for myself to spend as much time with them as possible - out of fear that one missed gathering would result in me being expelled from the group because I wasn't there when a certain joke was made. Yes, I had and still have this amazing group of friends, but no, that didn't mean I wasn't an introvert anymore - I soon had to find out, in one of the worst of ways, that even spending time with absolutely lovely people can push an introvert's buttons to the brink of emotional breakdown.
New me wants to be lonely more. I want to turn off my phone every now and then, and not worry that I am missing out while doing something that I actually enjoy, completely on my own. I want to feel comfortable and satisfied with lonely walks, lonely movies and lonely rooms again. I want to think about my own life without having to take other people into consideration first and foremost. I want to be selfish, a bit of a lone wolf every once in a while. Being alone with myself means other things to me, too: I want to open up my ears not only for what other people say, but for what I think and feel as well. Listen to my needs before I listen to what X or Y wants the group to do tonight. Explore myself in the same way I hungrily explored what having a group of friends felt like a year back. Get to know myself like I wanted to get to know these people I liked so much. Maybe like myself more in the process. Definitely become more comfortable with myself in the process.
I am typing the last words of this blog post at 1 AM, one day before my 20th birthday. I have work tomorrow and I should be asleep already, but I am sitting in my bed, cuddled up and half asleep, shocked at how open, honest and direct these lines are. I've watched one of my friends' Fallout 4 gameplay stream while writing this piece, and felt very grateful for not really doing this raw, real, new-me confession on my own. And despite preaching about feeling anew for 2000-something words now, I am still me, tired and craving a midnight snack and stressed about the new day ahead and how busy it is, but very excited about what's to come. As I said, for now, I'm doing my best with what I have. I set an alarm for reminding myself tomorrow morning to book a table for my birthday pub outing, put my laptop away and grab my tablet, turn my sleep tracker on then proceed to watch YouTube until I drift off. And hopefully won't feel grumpy when I wake up at ten to seven the following morning.
My name is Tanya and I'm almost 20. I'm currently learning that life is pretty sweet.
Photo sources: personal archive.