At the ripe age of twelve I thought this song was written especially for me and all of my fellow pre-teened, confusion-stricken peers.
No.
NO.
Spears was 22 when the song released. Well out of her teen years but yet not quite on the climb to 30 (undoubtedly the age of official adulthood). She had reached the age that every 20-something begins to feel "the shift," "the change," "the black plague."
Okay, I made all of that up. It's not that bad.
But, that's the age I started to panic.
"What the hell am I doing?"
"What the hell am I going to do?"
Thoughts of the future, degrees and careers begin to creep into our dreams and daily thoughts.
I swear a few months ago I looked down into my alphabet soup and my noodles were spelling "biological clock," "decisions," "graduate already."
My biological clock never started ticking, but how easy is it at this phase (or any phase, really) to look through our newsfeed and see everyone else in their mid-twenties having it all together?
Oh look, Martha just had another baby.
Oh look, Jennifer just got a promotion.
What the hell? I'm 25 and still eat Cheetos for dinner ON A GOOD DAY.
My dear, sweet, little twenty-something's, I have so much to tell you.
1. Stop comparing your life to the highlight reels of everyone else's. Martha might be running on 3 hours of sleep, picking cheerios from her hair and wishing she could still go out with her friends as often as she used to. Smiling photos, "likes" and #blessed doesn't mean someone is happier than you are. They could be miserable. They could be looking at your feed, thinking the same about your life.
2. Be where you are now. Oh dear ducklings, how easy is it to think about our lives in some distant time, wishing our lives away to the next job, the next boyfriend, the next step we feel we are supposed to take? We rush to get married because it's what we are supposed to do. We rush to have kids because "You've been married for about a year now, about time to think about some little ones,eh?" We rush to graduate so that we can land our dream job. The next, next, next. Sweet ladies, be where you are now. Live now. Be present in the here. Be happy in this chaotic, confusing, but beautiful season you are standing in right now. Stop hoping and wishing your life away year by year. You are in one of the sweetest seasons of your life. You get to discover who you want to be and who you are ultimately becoming. Right now! Isn't that a gift?
3. It's okay not to have your life together. You are twenty-something, 21, 22, 24, approaching 26 (don't remind me!). You aren't supposed to have your life together. You are supposed to be living and figuring it all out on the way. This is a joy ride, love. Stop beating yourself up and taking all of the joy out of it! Roll those windows down, turn up the tunes and let your fingers make love to the freeway air. This is the one time in your life when people won't look at you cross-eyed when you say you're currently on a journey to find yourself (screw them anyway, right?). Take advantage of these adventurous, wondrous, wild years! Quit your job if it doesn't make you happy. Dump that guy if he treats you like garbage. Try new foods. Travel new places. Learn a language. It's your time to learn more about yourself and more about the world around you. Who wants to have their life together when they can be on an adventure?
4. Not everyone is meant to stick around. Okay, this one sucks. It really, really, really sucks. So many faces have come and gone through out the years and it hurts. Your twenties are a time of making the friends that will stick and unfortunately losing friends that you thought would be around to watch your kids grow up. You change. You grow. You choose a path. They choose another. But, that's okay. Going separate directions at the fork in the road doesn't mean you can't smile at one another when you run into them at the grocery store, it simply means you knew them for who and what they once were. You accept that some people grow with you for a season and then you both began to grow differently, not better than the other, just different. Cherish the people that have grown you in the past, the ones growing you now and the ones that will help grow you in the future.
5. Get the tattoo. Take this literally, or don't. If you know me personally, you know that I would take this all the way to the tattoo shop! Live a little, babe! I wouldn't recommend a large fire-breathing dragon or, well, to each his own, eh? These are the years that you should make mistakes, take risks, be spontaneous! I am about to turn 26 and do not regret any of my tattoos, but most of them were a last minute, " I want to do this. This is my body. I'm getting this tattoo!" Own your choices, even if ten years from now you think they were immature. Isn't that beautiful, though? Why not let yourself hang out in the middle land for awhile? Get the dragon (no, not that) tattoo. Read whatever book catches your attention even if it's awfully written. Jump. Run. Ski. Get on the plane. Leave. Go. Come back again. Make a decision. Regret it. Change your mind. Do it all over again. Your twenties don't last forever, honey. Do something that scares you a little.
Sweet twenty-somethings, please put on your sassy red pants and try to enjoy these fleeting years. Time will be there. The career will be there. Graduation will come. Marriage (if you want that) will come. Children (if you want those) will come. Stand in the middle land and breathe in uncertainty, for years of certainty (sometimes mundane) will come in due time.
