It’s 4 a.m. and I can’t sleep because of these thoughts in my mind that won’t stop.

They won’t stop running and leaping and jumping and skipping. They won’t stop catapulting and tumbling and rolling. Soon enough they’re seeping in between every crevice of my body.

It’s 1 p.m. and I can’t pay attention in my Calculus lecture because these thoughts won’t stop.

I can’t even keep up with the chapter notes on my laptop while I keep getting text notifications about the party this weekend. I don’t even really want to go. But it’s what everyone else is doing so I guess I’ll just go, maybe it’ll be fun. Every word the professor is saying is just filtering in through one ear and out through the other. I’m too busy shuffling through all of my open tabs of all the countries I want to go to and places I need to see. I nearly croaked when I hear “pop quiz” and quickly exit out and go back to my Calculus notes tab.

It’s 6 p.m. as I let out a heavy sigh as I wake up from my afternoon nap to start getting ready to go to this party everyone’s talking about.

Shower. Makeup. Hair. Find outfit. Take pictures. Then go. As I’m showering these thoughts won’t stop. The girls and I finally get to taking pictures. I swipe up on my phone to the camera app as I ignore a notification from my budgeting app, so I can start saving up for all the crazy things I wanted to do before I decided to start doing what everyone else was doing. Before I started putting everyone before myself. Before I started losing sight of who I was. Or even better, who I want to be.

It’s 2 a.m. and these thoughts are engulfed in my brain.

My eyes are shut. And I’m dreaming. I’m tasting new and exotic foods in foreign countries. I’m jumping out of airplanes. I’m meeting all of these amazing people. I’m singing and I’m dancing and I’m laughing because the thoughts stopped. For a painfully brief moment the thoughts stopped. I was living in them. I was dreaming about them. All of the things that I said that I was going to do before I started going along with what everyone else did. Because it was easier. Because everyone was doing it. Because doing something that no one else is doing is scary, and it can be risky. And no risk you take is guaranteed that it’ll turn out the way you want.

BUT.

There’s a catch.

If you go for the risk. If you do what you really want to do. Say what you really want to say. Live how you really want to live. That thing that never seems to leave your eloping and endlessly exploding brain…guess what?

The thoughts stop.

We’re in our twenties. It’s our time to be selfish.

Our time to put ourselves first. We need to get through our stubborn, society-ridden, pride-filled heads of ours and understand something. THIS IS IT. It is officially THAT time in our lives. That time in 5^th grade that we talked about with all of our friends until 4 in the morning at sleepovers on the weekends. All of those crazy things that we wanted to do. The amazing lives we wanted to live, and people we wanted to meet, and places we wanted to see. Stop saying no when you want to say yes. Stop shrugging your shoulders and just pretending it doesn’t matter when deep down it’s killing you inside. Stop giving up when it gets too hard. Stop trying to push away feelings... you care for a reason. Stop saying no to new things because none of your buddies are doing it with you, it may turn out to be the best day of your life. Stop closing the tabs on your dreams because your losing track of how much homework you have.

We live in a time where not caring is cool. F*** that.

Call them. Let them know you miss them. We live in a time where going against the norm is weird. F*** that. Book a flight with your next paycheck for the weekend and don’t tell your parents. Just please for the love of god, go after what you want.

The other day I was visiting my grandma, who was just recently diagnosed with severe dementia, and I left with tears streaming down my face, which continued the whole ride home. Let me start by saying, elderly people absolutely fascinate me. I could sit and talk with them for hours on end and never get bored.

The amount of knowledge that they have, and life experiences that they have gone through is just so incredibly overwhelming to me. My grandma has her good days and her bad days, and this specific day I was fortunate enough to catch her on one of her best days. I kid you not for two hours straight, I probably said a total of 25 words. This beautiful woman just kept telling me story after story after story. The nurse told me before I went it to question her about her happier times, her friends, her school days. But avoid anything more recent or things that may remind her more of where she’s at, and what’s going on right now. And when I questioned her more about the olden times, her face was just beaming from ear to ear the whole time.

(Turns out my grandma was king of a badass)… besides the point but just wanted to put that in there because I’m going to read this to her.

Now let me get to the reason why I was crying. I just got hit with this giant reality check that these are my days. These are my “happier days.” These are the days that my grandkids are going to ask me about when they want to be awed with my life stories. And I am telling you right now, I’m not going to be some lame, boring grandma. Not in a million years. So, I realized I have to get going. Right now. I need to stop with the maybe’s. The what-if’s. The I wish’s. These are the years. If you aren’t doing what you want to do, change what you’re doing so you can do what it is that you want to do.

Because if I, and you, yes you reading this, don’t change something about what we’re doing right now, we’re going to be sitting in a nursing home in 80 years wishing we had. And those thoughts are going to start again. But you’re not going to be able to do anything about them anymore. This is your time to get those thoughts to stop. Live your happiest days. And regret nothing.

Now go open those tabs back up, call that person and let you know that you miss them, book the plane ticket, and tell your parents you love them.

We got this.