Reflecting on my 20’s: My quarter life crisis changed everything

Two weeks ago I got to celebrate the ending of my 20’s and the start of my 30’s.
That day my fiancé and I went on a nice four mile hike, and that night I had a socially distant and safe bonfire with my family and closest friends. Even without COVID-19 I probably would have wanted to celebrate the same way, except without the face masks. We enjoyed some chili, gluten free cookie cake, and s’mores, all while exchanging stories from childhood and the years in the 20’s. It was a great day and evening, and the best way to ring in my thirties!

When I celebrated my 20th birthday I did not realize the magnitude of the decade that would follow. I was a Sophomore in college, obsessed with boy bands and the idea of love, and trying to find my way to having a career.
Often I see people rush things during this decade, myself included. Like most people I had a timeline when I entered my 20’s.

“I would graduate from college at 22, be married at 25, and have a child at 28. When my twenty fifth birthday rolled around I certainly felt like I had a quarter life crisis because nothing went according to my plan.”

MY QUARTER LIFE CRISIS:

I had just finished graduate school that May, which is still one of my biggest and proudest life accomplishments to this day, and had moved to a town in Georgia three months prior. I was the heaviest I had ever weighed, had low self-esteem and was far from comfortable in my own skin.
I was super single and had been all of college and graduate school. To me dating was not high on the priority list during that time of life. Even when guys liked me I would shoot it down really quick and put them in the friend zone because nothing was ruining my focus from setting up my career. When I liked them, they often did the same thing, or we would “talk” but nothing would come of it. During my high school years there were a number of relationships that did a number on me emotionally. They all left me feeling like I would never be good enough for someone and that something was “wrong” with me. Instead of processing those feelings and emotions I just shutdown completely and I isolated myself when it came to the world of dating. The only “dating” I did was seeing my favorite boy band (Honor Society) on tour during that time, and sometimes multiple times during a tour.
When I turned 25 I was also trying to figure out how I would be able to financially survive on my own when my student loan grace period ended. I had lived by myself during graduate school but did not have many bills other than my rent and power. After I finished my graduate degree my student loans all together was just shy of $400.00 a month. It certainly was not as bad as it could have been considering the cost of a college degree these days, but still that was a hefty penny when you are supporting yourself financially and living alone. How could I find or maintain financial independence, and start the process of “adulting” now that I was done with my college years?

Looking back at my 25th birthday, I was not necessarily happy but I was not unhappy either. I was just trying to find my way, purpose, and what was next for me in life.

THE TURNING POINT:

Between the age of 25-26 I would say I did the most changing and growing that lead me to where I am at now. During this year I made a life defining choice that I believe in the decades to come will be the choice I will say “that changed everything.”

For a little over a year after my 25th Birthday I was trying to make my life in Georgia work for me. It was a life I always dreamed about and wanted, but it was not what I expected it to be when I got it.
For so long it had been about building my career. My focus all through college and graduate school was getting my masters degree, finding a job not in my hometown, and that was it. What I did not think about and consider at twenty years old when I made my plan is everything else that goes into creating a life you love.

What do you do when you reach your dream and it is not what you expect it to be? Where do you go next and what do you do?

When I re-read my journal entries during 2016, I see how much I discuss how lonely I was. Constantly asking myself if I had done everything I could to ensure happiness in Georgia, and make the most out of my life there. My relationship with my family members was not healthy, and I was hours away from any of my close friends. I was battling depression, and trying to find a sense of belonging to life in general.

The best thing that came out of this period of time in my 20’s was I learned how to date and love myself.

I took myself to movies and concerts, treated myself to movie weekends at home with movies I would borrow from the public library. I started working out again after taking a two year hiatus in graduate school, and exploring different recipes in the kitchen.
I dreamed about love and the kind of love I would like to have if I were lucky enough, but I also started being open to living a life alone and what that life could look like.

Even though my time in Georgia was dark on many levels, looking back now I know I needed that time and the experiences I had to find out what I truly wanted. What I discovered was that I wanted to be surrounded by love, to live near the people I love, and be in a place that I loved.

I wanted to be Home.

Deciding to move back home towards the end of 2016 was one of the hardest choices I have ever made. Even now a few years later I can say that wholeheartedly! You can read more about this choice and my first year home in The Journey Home Series.
I loved my office family and my role, and I did not want to leave and say goodbye to them. I also did not want to give up on my “dream” because it made me feel and believe that I failed.

“Dreams change and that is okay.”

Towards the end of 2016 I stopped living for the life I thought I had to have, and I started creating the life I wanted to have. Even if it looked different from other people I went to school with, or the way I initially believed it was supposed to be, I started to design the life I truly wanted and would love.
The key with this is that I stopped caring about the image of what my life looked liked and just focused on what it felt like.

DEFINING MOMENTS OF MY 20’S

When I look back at my 20’s I feel proud of how much I grew and allowed myself to become the person I am now. There have been a lot of defining moments throughout the past decade, and they deserve some recognition as well, and who knows maybe I will write about them all more in depth in time.

20 Defining moments of my 20’s from November 2010-2020:

1) Graduating from Southwestern Community College (May 2011)
2) Earning the Western Carolina University (WCU) Chancellor Achievement Award (June 2011)
3) Moving into the Resident Halls at WCU (August 2011)
4) Being diagnosed with Celiac Disease (October 2011)
5) Taking a bus up to New Jersey and visiting my family and NYC for New Years (December 2012)
6) Going on the local news station to talk about my Celiac Disease diagnosis and volunteering at the Ingles Gluten Free Expo (April 2013)
7) Graduating from college and moving to South Carolina for Graduate School at the University of South Carolina (USC) in the same week (May 2013)
8) Renting my first apartment and living by myself (May 2013-July 2019)
9) Losing my one and only grandparent (Spring 2014)
10) Spending the summer in Orlando, and going to Walt Disney World and Universal Studios for the first time (June 2014)
11) Helping plan and implement the Appreciative Education Conference while in graduate school at the USC (January 2015)
12) Graduating with my Master’s Degree (May 2015)
13) Moving to Georgia and my life there (August 2015-February 2017)
14) Getting my first credit card, not using it responsibly, and recovering from poor financial choices. (December 2015-Present)
15) Taking the job at SCC and moving back home to NC (February 2017)
16) Going on my first date with Daniel and all the milestones to follow that first year of being together (January-December 2018)
17) Becoming an Aunt (October 2018)
18) Getting professional help and counseling (June 2019)
19) Moving in with Daniel (July 2019)
20) Getting Engaged to the love of my life and starting forever with him by my side (November 2020)

Get your heart broken and disappointed in life, and then pick yourself up and channel all the love and energy towards building yourself.
Give yourself permission to dream, and change your plan if your dreams change. It happens because the important things at 20 are different then at 25, and so on.

Create the life YOU love and want!

Don’t compare your life to others because there is only one you and one life we all get to live. If you do not like it then change it. If you love it then cherish it.

I am looking forward to all that is to come in my 30’s, and I cannot wait to see how I grow and change in this next decade of life.

Until next time,