Older, but never Enough 

By: Vaishnavi Tiwari

20 is such a confusing age and not because you’re in college and figuring out what to wear at your freshers. Mostly because you don’t understand if being tired is a sign from God or an everyday thing, if your friends actually like you or neither of you are brave enough to be alone, if the degree you’re chasing is worth running behind or not, if the outfit in your head would look as good as in reality, if your spotify wrapped is socially acceptable (must have some artist under 3k monthly listeners ), if that boy who looks at you will ever wish you happy birthday at 12 am, if your parents are proud regardless of your college, if you’re old enough to complain because at 20 all you are supposed to do is try and try and only try. 20 started to happen long before you cut that damn cake and proved it on paper. It knocked on your door when you looked in your mirror every time you passed by it and wished something might magically change, when your room became your empire, when betrayal came from those who promised a forever like their life depends on it, when comparison became the only parameter to define you, 20 happened like a disease, captured your mind, body and soul, made you feel sick, the kind of sick only the mirror can detect, what once was a joyful age became a sickness with no cure. 

It feels like I am crawling towards life, as if I’ve been shot multiple times, stabbed multiple times and with every passing age, the wound is decaying but only I can see it, smell it, feel it with every inch of my adulthood and everyone else around me wants to celebrate it because to them, it's a sign of becoming. 

But am I becoming a survivor of my own life, when I haven’t done anything remarkable yet, anything to leave behind as my footprint? Have I done enough at 20 that will make me want to dress up for my 21st? 

I may blame it all on my youth but who am I without it? Where do I lie if nowhere on the spectrum of 20 and how can I ever be anything more if I am not 20- fully, heartbreakingly, completely? At 20, the world is burning and it feels like the only safe place is your empire that has saved you from multiple collapses and has seen you grow through it all- the only familiar place. But that empire starts to shred its walls once you're old enough to build a new one. 

Maybe that’s what 20 is all about, shifting your empire and maybe that’s where the spectrum ends. At 20 a lot will happen, multiple failures, heartbreaks, betrayal and plenty of lessons and memories you’ll have for a lifetime. One day you won’t be 20 anymore and your empire will become a monument of everything you’ve learned throughout your years of growing and the world would still be burning but you’ll be old enough to understand that all you have to save is yourself. 20 will certainly teach you that the hard way.