Episode 83: Dear Early 20s

I'm in my early 20s. 22. Dumb as fuck. Incredibly impulsive.

And just wrong. I'm always wrong and experiencing ambivalence for everything and everyone. There is a wild fire the size of an elephant that sleeps wherever I rest.

So here is a little love and hate letter to my early 20s. Everything I think important to survival of the fittest of these lovely, enduring, and challenging years.

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Dear Early 20s,

You're where you've always wanted to be. Moments right before you drift off to sleep in your early tweens and mid-teen years after hours of constant homework and almost 4 hours of daily bus riding, you always dreamt of being 20. 

Why 20s of all times? Well, it's because people in their 20s are so fucking hot. You thought you'd be as hot by then, losing all your lower belly fat, your cheek fat, and gain lots of back muscle to balance all the hunching you did for AP Calc and AP Bio. Except in your 20s, you learn to peel back all of that internalized self-hate and self-consciousness. No one watches you as intensely as you've watched and judged yourself. All of that internalized fear of what someone else thinks -- some of that came from hearing the way your mother talks about herself. Squeezing her own belly fat in disgust or getting on the scale and then off it, only patting herself kindly after seeing she's lost weight. You learned to suck in your breath so that you could flatten your belly while sitting as early as elementary. You learned to do all of this, believing that if you did this, no one else would look at you in disgust, like the way she did. Little one, look at all the lies you and your mother and every piece of fatphobic media has told you. 

But your 20s, you're free of that. You realize all of that learned self-hate has no real power over you and your happiness and your chance at happiness after all. You are loved as you are. You are here and that is enough and in your 20s, you realize this for the first time. How? You can see realize this? Because you start leaving home or being more independent. Making choices on your own. Seeing where your own decisions lead you and the opportunities that land on your lap because of who you are, not how you look like. And slowly you realize, you're a capable, thoughtful soul. You find yourself surrounded with people who are both your friends and admire you. You can't ever truly see yourself unless it's through the eyes of others and these sweet friends of yours, see your strengths and celebrate you. 

If others can be so kind to you, then you start asking, "Why can't I be as kind to myself as my friends and sister are?"

Finally, you dress for yourself. You don't let go of clothes you thought would show off your wide arms. Your arms are nice and strong, plush and firm from all that child labor you offered at your mom's nail salon. 

Thank you child labor. 

But importantly, 20s people are wise.

Wise in a short-term way. Not the kind of wisdom where you put money into something and let it grow so you can retire safely. No, it's quick, on-the-streets wisdom: don't use tongue on your first kiss with someone that you'd like to invest in. Double wash your face twice every day because you're oiler than you thought. Create group chats for all your classes so everyone else can keep you accountable; you'll learn soon that you can't even trust yourself.

But you can trust your feelings. Those gut feelings are always right. And if you end up going against it, you'd open all the wrong doors only to find all the right ones after. "What's meant to be yours will be," your mother always said. You didn't understand that when you first love left you at 18, but you understand it now in your 20s. Because if they actually wanted to stay, heck even inanimate objects, then they'd stay. If they had a will, then they'd want and fight to stay in your life in a way that grows and hugs you. Amplifying who you already are. Celebrating the life you've lived.

Like plushie pillows and thick fluffy blankets that fit your shape. 

Now, whenever something or someone leaves you, you learn to long for them less. Now, whenever you have a small gut feeling to leave anything or anyone behind, you learn to listen and leave, even if you're stuck on the most awful phone call to do it. 

Stuck. 20s are for that too. 

Paralyzed by fear, there's more responsibility here. There's a life to build. A salary you've come this far to negotiate for. A senior in college, all everyone wants to know are your plans after. But remember how you don't really care about outside opinions? That's a lie haha. You still care about your parents'. :I Because they matter to you -- people who matter to you, their opinions will always weigh you somehow. You're never just an independent variable. You lied when you said you were an independent woman. That's the last thing you feel sometimes. 

Don't be too confident in yourself and your inner voice either. Be ready to see all the mistakes you made out of fear of loneliness. That fear makes too many a mistake. Fuck loneliness. You have friends, silly. You have family. You read Buddhist philosophy about fear and you realize the monks are right: how can you eat a meal alone and forget that the food, the plate, the clean table you sit at -- so many hands were involved to give you a good dining experience? Don't forget how interconnected your heart and your humanity is to everyone else's. When you remember this, you can't possibly ever be alone.

Responsibility. You should have plans, real future plans, besides the fact that you want kids. You should be more comfortable talking to yourself to make career plans. Except, you're not comfortable at all, so you fill that time with the shape of a man and that temporarily fixes things but it won't fix the fact that you don't where you're headed. So much possibility and no plan. Is it because you want to make the most out of life? Or is it because you're paralyzed by fear? People died in boats. People fought in wars. Your ancestors were pretty darn thicccly awesome. And you're kind of a cute bum, but you're still a bum. College is an excuse for you to go clubbing on the weekends and buy you time to feel young and stupid. But you can't be young and stupid anymore. You could. But only after you get at least one job offer. Come the fuck on. :I 

You're more familiar with the word "fuck" than you'd like. After saying that word in your head, you wonder, "why does every word that's satisfying to say have to be sexual?" You start noting this to make sure that when you reach your 30s, you'd have a classier word to curse with. Something Shakespearean and dirty.

These are the years to be constantly humbled by everyone, especially your parents, who you wish were wrong but nope, they're still fucking right. Be wrong about everything, and be wrong about yourself.

You can have a fake job, a fake boyfriend, a fake vibe, but you can't fake it when it feels wrong. 

Those feelings won't let you astray. That self-assuredness that you've celebrated in your little sister, your friends, and your family -- you have that too. You say no well. You say yes well. And you say "maybe" very little. 

Your early 20s are here. I have no advice for you, because I'm in it, but I feel like the one thing you can't forget is this: don't be afraid to talk to yourself at night. 

That's it. 

Your own company is a sweet place, and I hope you'll learn to love it more and more as time passes. 

You have a lot of smart things to say to everyone else all the time. Now it's time to return the favor to your own lil bum brain.

I love that for you.

Bless,

your girl, Ngoc