As I count down the last few hours of my teenage years, I can’t help but ponder on my life for the past two decades. To think I am about to be 20 is exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time. I am no longer considered a child, I don’t live at home, I make most of my decisions for myself … I am officially an adult. The past two decades of my life has been filled with ups and downs. I have been blessed with so much, but also have gone through things that most my age don’t have to go through.
As I say goodbye to my teenage years, I have learned many valuable lessons and truths that will help me as I enter this next decade. Here are the top 20 things I have learned before turning 20.
1. It's OK to question my faith: My faith in God is the most important aspect of my life; it is my identity. However, going from a small conservative town to a very liberal college has made me question many things about what I believe. I used to think I was being a bad Christian to be questioning my faith every few days, but then I realized it was just a part of growing up. I have always believed what others told me to believe, and now I have to determine what I actually believe in.
2. I can’t expect someone to love me if I can’t love myself: I want to get married, I want to have two or three kids, and I want to live on a farm with a wide variety of animals. It's my life goal. One of my biggest fears about turning 20 is that I am not in a stable relationship, because I want to be married within the next five or six years. I want someone else to love me, but I am not yet in love with myself. Until we can love ourselves fully, no one else will be able to love us for our true selves.
3. I can survive a broken heart … or multiple: Anyone who is 20 has probably had his or her few shares of broken hearts; it’s just a part of life. Getting your heart broken straight up sucks, but each time gets a little bit easier to get over. When I was 14 I experienced my first breakup, I thought I wouldn’t be able to survive, but I did. And since that day, I have survived every other one.
4. I am not defined by my mistakes: I have made lots of mistakes these past 20 years, but they have not made me any less of a person. Who I am, who you are is not what you did three years ago, three months ago, or even three seconds ago. We are human, and we are going to mess up. We learn and we move on.
5. It is OK that my life plans change every other day: It is pretty typical for me to walk into my dorm room after my organic chemistry class and tell my roommate I’m switching my major from Biology to Women and Gender Studies. At 20 we aren’t supposed to have our whole lives planned out, so stop trying to.
6. It is OK to have emotional breakdowns: Again, we shouldn’t have our whole lives planned out right now. With that, however, comes extra stress because we are walking around acting like we have it all together when we really don’t. Eventually the pretending catches up to you and you find yourself driving up to the Blue Ridge Parkway in the middle of winter to just sit and cry on the side of the closed-off road. We are going to break down and we are going to go crazy at times, but after those moments are over, take a deep breath and know everything is going to eventually work out. Because it always does.
7. It is OK to let go of friends who hurt you: By the time you are 20 we know what a true friend is, but even then we can sometimes find ourselves in unhealthy and toxic friendships. If you aren’t being treated the way you deserve, it’s OK to cut that person out of your life. It's OK to unfriend them, delete their contact, and erase their memory because it's going to be more destructive to keep the toxicity in your life than just removing them from it.
8. I can let go of the past and it won't kill me: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? It really does. I used to think I could never move past certain things in my life, and then I woke up one morning and was tired of being hurt and being demoralized. It hurts for a while, but eventually you will be able to move on with your life and be completely content with your who you are.
9. Taylor Swift makes everything better: No matter what I am going through, there is always a T. Swift song to express exactly how I feel. Nothing makes you feel better than dancing around your room with T. Swift blaring from your speakers.
10. It is OK to be spontaneous and live life to the fullest: It is important to be serious, but is also important to actually enjoy your life. It is OK to go out on a weeknight after acing a major test. It is OK to eat a doughnut after running 15 miles. It is OK to just lie in bed all day binging on Netflix … it is OK. Enjoy life, do what makes you smile and always remember to laugh. Life will be much more rewarding.
11. You don’t need a lot of best friends: I used to call everyone my “best friend,” but in reality I only have a select few best friends. I am quite content with the number of true friends I have and I don’t need more to make myself feel worthy. It is a rare thing to find someone who loves you completely for you, and when you find those few people, no other opinion matters.
12. What others think about me isn’t always true: Not everyone is going to like you. In fact, I have met a lot of people in my life that straight up hate me -- usually for stupid and arrogant reasons -- but those people don’t define who I am. We all have unique characteristics that make us lovable. I have learned to not care what others think about me, because I know what God thinks about me, and to him I am pretty awesome.
13. I have a right to my opinion: I am pretty blunt and am also very conservative, a mad mixture when you go to an ultra liberal school. I have always been taught to speak my mind, so it’s just a natural instinct for me to give my opinion when someone contradicts what I believe in. I sometimes say the wrong thing, sometimes I am politically “incorrect,” and sometimes I lose my temper and offend someone on the opposite political spectrum, but I have a right to what I say. The fact I don’t believe in gay marriage, abortion, or the legalization of marijuana doesn’t make me a bad person; I simply have a difference in opinion. If I respect others' opinions, then I expect others to respect mine.
14. I am smart: Throughout high school, I always felt inferior to most of my friends; I always felt stupid. I made a 93 in Honors Chemistry, but one of my friends made a 99, so of course she made it clear I wasn’t as smart as her. When I decided to study at the University of North Carolina Asheville, one of my friends told me that it wasn’t a “real” college. I have always been insecure with my academic performance, but I have no reason to be. I graduated with highest honors and 21st in my class. I currently am in college (yes, a real college) working my butt off as a biology major and a student athlete, making really good grades. I am smart, not as smart as some, but I am smart.
15. I can’t give up cherry lemon sundrop, sugar cookies, Sonic nerd slushies, and coffee: By the age of 20, I have tried many diets, given up sweets and caffeine, and even started a juice cleanse that only lasted eight hours. I have always been self-conscious of my weight (even though I run all the time) and have thought if only I ate better, I would drop down to the magic 115 pounds I strive to weigh. I have tried and tried to give up the “bad” food, and I have been pretty successful with most of it, but I will always have my addictions. I don’t want to live a life of eating kale chips, organic carrots with non-GMO peanut butter, and hamburgers without the bun. I want to enjoy life, and if that means having a cherry lemon sundrop once a week or five sugar cookies every other night at the cafeteria, I am going to because it makes me happy, and we deserve to be happy.
16. Boys aren’t stupid; they don’t ruin your life: Just because I haven’t had the best luck with guys doesn’t mean I think every guy is shallow, arrogant, and manipulative. So many girls my age walk around thinking men are the bad guys just because of one or two bad experiences. Every time a guy has hurt me, I like to remember that I have caused that same pain to some other guy, but it doesn’t make me stupid; it doesn’t make them swear off all other girls. We are meant to have bad relationships, we can’t be afraid to fall in love and become broken from it. Even though it seems like the right guy will never show up, I promise he will when the time and is right.
17. It is OK to be selfish: So often we live our lives putting others before ourselves. To be selfless is a precious and rare gift to have in this world, but sometimes it can rob us from taking care of ourselves. I have spent most of my life taking care of others that I didn’t realize I was tired, hurting, and completely broken. Eventually I hit my breaking point, woke up and realized I deserved to smile, I deserved others to be there for me, and I deserved to discover who I am. I still care about people, I still make time to be there for my friends and family, but I no longer try and fix their problems.
18. I am pretty: Like most girls my age, I struggle with self-esteem. There are times I look into the mirror and have to walk away because I feel ugly and fat. I have occasional meltdowns because my outfit makes me feel like a man. Sometimes I can’t even leave my room because I don’t want others to see me. We live in a world where we are being compared to social standards every second of the day, and if we don’t meet these standards we feel inadequate. I don’t meet every social standard that defines what beauty is, but it doesn’t make me “ugly.” As I have aged, I have learned to accept myself the way I am, and although I still deal with frequent moments of “ugliness,” I have learned to realize that the way I view myself is not an accurate depiction of what I actually look like. The truth is that I am actually very pretty.
19. Mermaids are real: Ninety-five percent of the ocean has been unexplored, so I think saying mermaids don’t exist is a stupid thing to claim. But even if mermaids aren’t “real,” what is the harm in still believing in them? We need to believe in things that don’t always fit in the realm of reality or practicality. If we don’t believe in the "what ifs," then we will live a boring life filled with nothing worthwhile.
20. I am a Princess of the One true King: To know that I am loved unconditionally by my Creator is one of the best truths I have ever known. He knows my every fear, my strengths and weaknesses, my past, present, and future, everything about me. No matter what I do in life, He will never stop loving me. I am fearfully and wonderfully made and with Him nothing is impossible.
I am 20 years old now, and it's weird to think I will never be considered a "child" again. I am growing up, and although it can be hard at times, I am excited to see where this next decade of my life takes me. I don't have it all together, but I am doing everything that is normal for adults our age. My days are no longer predictable; I can no longer tell you what time I will go to bed tonight or if I will even have time to eat lunch tomorrow. I oversleep for class multiple times a week, I break down after hours of studying for my chemistry test, I call my mom regularly asking if it's OK if I just drop out of school, and I drink unhealthy amounts of caffeine just to keep functioning after a hard work out at 6 a.m. I am thankful for this journey of life that I am on, and even when it is hard, I am thankful for the lessons I have learned to keep me going.
