"Wait until you're in your twenties," they always said. They always said this when I was a fed-up teenager.

"Heather, I'm going to be honest with you: your twenties just suck." This is what my mom said to me the other day as I cried about missing my boyfriend while he works night shift and heavily budgeting grocery bills and stuff like that. Lofty stuff.

Some people will tell you, oh, it's all about the thirties. But I look at women in their thirties and they all just look so tired. Most of them have already given up. It's rare I see a woman under 35 who hasn't completely mentally, physically, and behaviorally thrown in the towel - married or unmarried.

I just moved in to my first apartment, and there are a lot of responsibilities. But I've always had responsibilities. This isn't any harder than AP exams week in high school, or performance night for the school musical, and I'd take being broke and opting for cheaper peanut butter when I go shopping any day over living in my Lieutenant father's strict and constantly abasing household.

Do you love it when I answer the question I open the article with? Because I do. There's something special about every age group. It's just that most people are hung up on "poor me" and miss out. My boyfriend is 38. Isn't our union special? Yes, his back hurts a lot. And he hates paying bills, too. But he got what we have as a thirty-something, which makes being a thirty-something special.

Maybe it's inherent. Maybe it's individual. Maybe one's time to shine is on a person-by-person basis. But I will tell you one thing.

Most of my customers at work are seniors. A handful of them are grumpy bastards that like to caterwaul and play "poor me, I'm old". But most of them are seriously living it up. I hear about their passion projects, their grandkids, their vacations, the TV shows they've binged, their pets, their devotions to spouses and lifelong professions. It's beautiful.

I guess I'm saying that the old people (and my mom, who said my twenties will suck, and those people who said they'd be great when I was a teen) taught me that it's not about how old you are, it's about what you're doing with this thing I'd label a gift which we all call life.

Suffering is inherent. Accepting it as part of this gift is a choice.

"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape." - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.