LETTERS TO MY YOUNGER SELF: Dear 21.

Looking at this picture gets me teary.

Dear Boba,

21 has actually brought us to the conclusion that your 20s may not actually be the best years of our life.

Hear me out.

How could they be? In your 20s you’re just about an adult. I think we’ve bought into a lie that your 20s are to be your best years when the reality you spend the most of it confused, feeling a little lost, trying to claw your way through a decade of learnings.

I wish someone told me that I would be confused about my identity,career, relationships, and literally everything.

That I wouldn’t have it all figured out, that I wouldn’t need to know what I’m going to do for the rest of my life( statistically speaking most people change career paths multiple times, even sometimes unrelated to what they studied) because let’s be honest, a lifetime is a long time.

I wish someone told me that I’m going to lose my spark every now and then, and that’s actually okay, that I’m not always going to be beaming with bright ideas and hopes about life and where I’m heading.

I wish someone had told me that my heart was going to break, and sometimes parts of me would shatter with it, and I would have to reach into the depths of my soul to heal that part.

I wish someone had told me that I was going to get it wrong sometimes, and the guilt would sometimes sit with me, and somehow, I would have to accept that even when I did the best with what you knew,I would still be accountable for my decision making.

I wish someone had told me that I don’t need to achieve all my goals whilst at university or keep up with the Kardashians, that I don’t need to obsessively pursue wealth at all cost including in my health and my relationships.

I wish someone had told me that I can define healthy relationships, partnerships, and friendships for myself, and that could actually take some time figuring out. I’m still learning what it means to be a good friend and that I might struggle to make new friends at times. Loneliness will swallow me up at some point, but I find the way out and see the value in cultivating community.

I wish someone had told me that I am going to wrestle with the reality that my parents are humans before they are my parents, and I will struggle to find a line between accountability and compassion.

I wish someone had told me that grief is going to hit me like a ton of bricks eventually, and I will question the meaning of my own existence constantly and probably won’t get any much closer to an answer because everyone is searching for an answer only they can define for themselves.

I wish someone told me that in my 20s I’m building and breaking, and I’m healing my own bruises along the way and reconciling with my childhood whilst redefining the trajectory of my life that I really know so little about.

So, all the questions I have, life will answer in it’s own time and I need not rush or exhaust myself because this decade and likely all others will have it’s highs and lows and sometimes I will ride the waves and sometimes float beneath them and all of it is okay.

B.