I'm In My 20's. Am I Behind?

“People your age have graduated with a degree by now.”

“Other twenty-two-year-olds have full careers.”

“Your friend is buying a house…”

“I had kids and a husband by the time I was your age.”

These are all unsolicited comments I’ve received in the last year of my life.

But I don’t own a house.

I haven’t started university.

I haven’t started a career.

And I don’t have a husband, nor do I even know if I want kids.

I’d bet money that you’ve experienced someone handing you their two cents about where you should be in your life. Whether you’re in your teens, twenties, thirties, or beyond, the goalposts for where you should be keep moving.

So if the goalposts are always moving, and we never signed up to play the game in the first place, why are we so desperate to win?

I haven’t reached any of these conventional markers of success, and still, I have been undeniably productive.

I have goals for myself. I want a career that I feel passionate about, and I don’t know what that looks like yet.

If it involves going to school, I’ll enroll. If it involves moving, I’ll move.

But I didn’t always have the capacity to take these steps. There was a point not too long ago when I couldn’t even think about the next day, never mind commit to a four year degree.

If you’ve read my posts thus far, you should have quite a good idea of the mental health struggles I’ve been working through.

I was in and out of eating disorder treatment for years. I tried working when I wasn’t in treatment. I started a lash extension business, learned how to do nails, and even took an emergency medical dispatching course. I was an educational assistant for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and I was good at it.

From the outside looking in, you’d see a productive, functional twenty two year old adult, trying her hand at anything that piqued her interest to make a living.

What you couldn’t have seen was a twenty two year old adult fighting for her life to keep a bite of food down.

You didn’t see the nights I spent wondering if I’d wake up in the morning, or the countless times malnourishment made me so dizzy at work that I thought I’d pass out.

I was supporting myself financially, living on my own, and working a stable job that could have turned into a career if I wanted it to.

But I was dying.

Complying with what I thought a girl in her early twenties should be doing was costing me my health, my happiness, and everything else that made life worth living.

I may not have a degree or a career to show for my early twenties, but I have fought for something far more important.

I saved my life by choosing recovery.

I found joy.

I laugh louder.

I smile bigger.

I am present.

I no longer have panic attacks every day.

My heart no longer races because of my eating disorder behaviours.

I no longer have toxic friendships.

I moved out of my home city and started fresh.

I started this blog.

I engage in my hobbies more.

I am alive. And I am well.

There’s nothing more valuable or important to me than that.

Not education.

Not a career.

Not a boy.

Not a degree.

Not kids.

My well-being.

Maybe you’re healing from something you don’t talk about. Maybe you’re making difficult decisions about your future. Maybe you’re learning to live with yourself after years of struggling. Maybe you’re simply getting to a place where tomorrow feels worth looking forward to.

Whatever it looks like, your progress doesn't have to be visible to be meaningful.

We don’t have to justify our existence through achievement. We can exist without constantly proving that we’re going somewhere.

No, I don’t have a husband, a house, a degree, kids, or a career.

But for the first time in twenty two years, I have a life that I want to live.

And I think that counts for something.

Actually, I think it might count for everything.