Like many 20 somethings, I’ve been going through a lot of internal changes these past couple of years. No one really talks about life after 21, its like society expects people to only celebrate a few of the milestones of youth. But I am discovering that so much lies beyond 21, becoming a 21 year old was just the icing. Your 20s provide you with all the ingredients to the cake.
As I step more and more into my being and who I am, I notice more of what has been given to me and what it is that I would like to keep. When you’re growing up, a lot is told to you. A lot is suggested to you as well, because we learn from example. What I am now embracing is all that lies beyond the box that was given to me. I no longer wish to exist within the confines of the box that I came to be very comfortable in. Getting outside of the box for me simply means that I am not restricting who I am to what I have been told about my being. Life doesn’t stop after you turn 21, you keep growing. More growth probably than ever before, at least for me. This past year I followed my heart and gave myself a chance to live my life on my own terms. Realizing I was still sticking to the status quo of my old life felt frustrating at times, like a “why am I being like this” kind of vibes.
I stopped putting the pressure on myself to be the way that I had been taught and began asking myself; who am I? what do I value, why? what makes my heart sing? A lot of the answers I found existed so far beyond the world I’d been brought up in; Education comes first and holds all the magical answers to life, go to college, get a job, be “successful” in terms that I hadn’t even established but instead adhered to out of habit and obligation.
Once I became still enough to hear what I truly wanted out of this life, I could do nothing except follow the changes that found me. Now I am here, presently living the life I imagined when I was a child. A life I knew was possible but lost touch with once the box found its way around me.
Sometimes it has felt hard for me to be this new version of myself 24/7, because I spent 22 years living in survival mode. I am living life outside of the box now and its pretty cool out here. Choice is out here, love is out here, freedom is out here, bless.
