I just got back from Palm Springs* where I was enjoying my longest getaway since… I don’t even know. It was a girls’ trip, which isn’t something I’m fluent in. The girls I got away with were some of my first roommates when I moved to Seattle on whim nearly 10 years ago. I met them at the pivotal (and let’s be honest volatile) time of my early twenties. Which I guess is to say … I met them in my early twenties.
Your twenties are a time that is, by nature, completely contradictory. For many of us we’d just graduated, sat in a large auditorium and had someone tell us about our endless potential and how this was the first day of the rest of our lives. And then hand us a bill and kick us out the door.
Because it *was* the first day of the rest of our lives, but so was the next day. And the rest of lives was now up to us. Luckily, if you graduated with a liberal arts degree (raises hand violently) you were equipped to ask the big questions. However, you weren’t that equipped to make career decisions or file your taxes.
Ten years later here we were lounging by pool, smile lines, cancer scares, c-section scars, stretch marks, fur babies and husbands (or not) and five girls between us, mortgages (or not), but all still paying off our college loans. We relived our lowest (and often most hilarious) moments of our early twenties and talked about life now. Which is still sometimes just as unclear and messy as it was back then.
So why does it feel less internally volatile? I think the difference is that as you grow older you become more comfortable with contradiction. Even, and especially, contradiction within your own spirit. It’s something I still struggle with and is the number one thing I admire in those I look up to.
Live your own truth. It’s a phrase I heard a lot this weekend, but not one I’ve ever thrown around. I think it means the same thing as keeping it real. It’s accepting the “you” that you are. Even the parts you sometimes really don’t like. I don’t mean falling back on the excuse to be a human turd by saying ‘that’s just how I am’ but don't rake yourself over the coals for your flaws either. Instead address them with empathy and determination to live more like your truth.
So here’s to friends that encourage us to live our own truth, and challenge us to keep growing while still accepting and loving ourselves for who we are right now at the same time.
* I'm accepting the me that wrote this blog three weeks ago and finally hit publish today. Insert guilty smile emoji.
Your twenties are a time that is, by nature, completely contradictory. For many of us we’d just graduated, sat in a large auditorium and had someone tell us about our endless potential and how this was the first day of the rest of our lives. And then hand us a bill and kick us out the door.
Because it *was* the first day of the rest of our lives, but so was the next day. And the rest of lives was now up to us. Luckily, if you graduated with a liberal arts degree (raises hand violently) you were equipped to ask the big questions. However, you weren’t that equipped to make career decisions or file your taxes.
Ten years later here we were lounging by pool, smile lines, cancer scares, c-section scars, stretch marks, fur babies and husbands (or not) and five girls between us, mortgages (or not), but all still paying off our college loans. We relived our lowest (and often most hilarious) moments of our early twenties and talked about life now. Which is still sometimes just as unclear and messy as it was back then.
So why does it feel less internally volatile? I think the difference is that as you grow older you become more comfortable with contradiction. Even, and especially, contradiction within your own spirit. It’s something I still struggle with and is the number one thing I admire in those I look up to.
Live your own truth. It’s a phrase I heard a lot this weekend, but not one I’ve ever thrown around. I think it means the same thing as keeping it real. It’s accepting the “you” that you are. Even the parts you sometimes really don’t like. I don’t mean falling back on the excuse to be a human turd by saying ‘that’s just how I am’ but don't rake yourself over the coals for your flaws either. Instead address them with empathy and determination to live more like your truth.
So here’s to friends that encourage us to live our own truth, and challenge us to keep growing while still accepting and loving ourselves for who we are right now at the same time.
* I'm accepting the me that wrote this blog three weeks ago and finally hit publish today. Insert guilty smile emoji.