Being 24 is Awesome.

Every old person has been young before. I am blessed to have many close relationships with people in the Fall or Winter of their lives. They either wish they were young again or are thankful that the years I have yet to face are just a streetlight in their rearview mirror.

Every young person in history has had to face something that their parents and grandparents couldn't have dreamed of facing. But yet every struggle is still somehow the same.

Being in your 20s is like being 70 and being 6 at the same time.

You are so young, but you realize that you're getting older.

You used to think you knew everything, but you realize you know nothing.

You have a drive to do great things, but you don't know where or how to start.

You can do whatever you want to do, but you continue to face problems you never considered.

You have done so much, but you have also done nothing.

You are an adult, but you have to ask an adult for help.

You have so many friends, but you feel so alone.

You are growing and leaving, but are somehow still being left behind.

You want to be a kid again sometimes, but you also can't wait to be old, looking in the same rearview at the streetlight of unsureness you are currently standing under.

People in their 20s now watch their peers through pixeled portraits. And those portraits, like those of Egyptian royalty, are meant to make you believe that those people are someone that they're not. Every photograph is tainted with filters and facetune, with guises and grins that make you wonder what you're doing wrong.

The game of comparison is a game that nobody wins. It's a game that, as a young woman and a twin, I learned to play at a very young age. No matter what, I will never be the best. I will never be the worst. I will never be first. I will never be last. And as a perfectionist, even a people-pleaser, nothing bothers me more than failing. And I fail all the time. All the while, I am watching my peers "win." Time and time again, they win, never failing. They post about new jobs, engagements, weddings, pregnancies, babies, promotions, homes. It seems like they have everything I want.

But maybe, just maybe, I have everything they want. My life is still very much a blank slate. And thanks to my experience so far, I have a lot of colors to paint with. I am not tied down to a reference picture yet. No one told me I had to paint a certain picture, to live a certain way, to marry a certain person or not. And if I had been right about what I was so sure of many times in my life, I'd have a painting I'd never want to have hanging on my wall now. 

Being 24 is scary sometimes. Being unmarried, childless, career-less, unestablished, young, dumb, and broke is not necessarily what I thought 24 would look like. But 24 is also adventurous, thoughtful, free, insightful, important, fun (most of the time), and most of all: hopeful. I've barely touched my paintbrush to the canvas of my life. And when I die, I want all of my descendants to be proud to display my work in their homes. I want to be someone that they're proud to share blood with.

I will be one day.

But for now, the streetlight over 24 will continue growing brighter as I step away from it and into the rest of my life, as I sketch and stroke my days onto my canvas until my piece is finished and I enter into The Garden for eternity. And I hope my painting does The Garden justice.