Twenties

The 20s is the most confusing phase of your life.

Everything seems disoriented, chaotic and rushed. You live in the extremes - your nerves constantly on the edge. You either can't sleep because you're so heartbroken or you sleep all day because you're so severely hungover.

There are times that take you high up on the clouds - dancing-in-air, so happy, and then there are times that pull you right down to the bedrocks and you think you'll never recover.

There are days you plan for the weekend or this is where we'll go next month or we're going to do this next year - your mind so active in those long-term plans that you have already decided what to wear on that vacation. There are also days when you want to bury yourself under the blanket, shut down the world and just wish you were dead.

There are times you are so angry that you can feel the world charring at your touch and the walls retreating to escape the wrath of your fury. There are times when you just take a deep breath and let it all go.

Some days you have so much love to give - the warmth and fuzz and liveliness being too much to wrap around the world; and some days you think you would catch a cold from the ice inside your soul.

Some nights you can't sleep because you think there are monsters under your bed; some nights you can't sleep because these monsters are poking from under your skin; and some nights, you give a damn.

There is a question mark in every breath. Clarity is an alien term.

All our lives we're finding things - a misplaced key, a lonely sock, pen caps, safety pins, phone numbers, Skype IDs.. but in our hearts, we're all ever only looking for answers.
Answers to questions that jab you and nab you and prick you and nibble you. In the end, you just want to feel okay. You just want to live one more day. You just want to sit at your window with a cup of coffee. You want to stare at the rain and feel the caffeine spread through your veins before the questions hit your brain.

Every spoken word, every action, every reaction will have an impact, will have a consequence. If I do this now, that will happen later. And we don't do it now because we think we're not ready for the consequence. But have we ever been ready for the consequences all along? Have we ever been able to predict yesterday that this is how today is going to be? No - things have happened to us and we have dealt with them, good or bad, right or wrong, and we're alive. Still going.

I'm 22 and I spend half my life thinking how things will be at 25 or 37 or 50.
I'm sure you do that too.
Let's all stop.

Stop wasting our time thinking about things we cannot control.
Stop being beaten by our pasts.
Stop carrying the baggage.
Stop pretending.
Stop procrastinating.
Just stop.

It's okay.
It's okay if you eat a double cheese burst pizza.
It's okay if your abs are not showing.
It's okay if you have failed a subject or two.
It's okay if your hair is frizzy.
It's okay if you date someone with no intention of marrying them.
It's okay if you want to dye your hair a weird shade of blue.
It's okay if your periods are late.
It's okay if you have exhausted all your money in a pub.
It's okay if you have thrown up after just a peg.
It's okay if you have broken someone's heart.
It's okay if you part.
It's okay.
It's all okay.
Trust me.

It's okay because you are doing it while you still can.
Don't worry if it is right or wrong, if he'll stay or leave, if this is how things should be, if this is how you ought to be -
don't think.

Because now is the only time when you can do things without thinking them through.
Even if you're marking mistakes, don't hesitate to make another. This is the only time to make mistakes. Collect your scars and wear your wounds. Bear the pain, but go for it again.
The only thing you shouldn't have later is regret - regret that you wished, you could have, you should have. Do it while you can.

And even though your 20s is the most confusing phase, it is also the most happening, most unpredictable and most adventurous phase of your Life.
Live it while you still can.