22 (olivia’s version)
Just like the Taylor Swift song, I entered my twenty-second year recently. Well a month ago, but nevertheless. Twenty-two felt big for me for some reason. I am unsure if it is the approaching of graduation or the feeling of my frontal lobe developing, but I feel officially old. I know that statement will cause the group of my mom’s Facebook friends who read these to roll their eyes. I know I am not old. I have plenty of time. And I don’t even say that in an evil or jaded or distressed way. I think most of me feels comforted by my growing age. I find joy in the fact that I am no longer as clueless as I was at seventeen. And the world often does not feel as intense as it did to seventeen-year-old me. Sure being young was fun, but I am finding it so much more fun to know yourself. To be sure of yourself. To feel more like you in this world.
Birthdays have always been a place of documentation for me. I look back through my writing and photographs, I look around at my friends and family. For the past few years, I have used it as a time to document my lessons. My growing pains. My new-found wisdom that I will probably roll my eyes at years down the line.
So here are my current twenty-two thoughts or feelings about the world, my life, and growing up. These are taken from what I have read this year, heard this year, felt this year, listened to this year, and feared this year.
My twenty-two reflections for my twenty-second year. Better late than never.
You have to love art more than being an artist. You have to love running more than you love being a runner. You have to love to sing more than just being a singer. You have to love to write more than you love being a writer. You can’t just love the idea of something, you have to love it.
You will never be too much for the right person.
Life can feel so romantic all by yourself. This summer, I ran away to Italy to be all by myself. I spent hours walking under pine trees by myself. I drank cold white wine on the balcony while listening to young Italian children playing on the street down below. I walked through old churches. I wore light clothes. I read novels that I needed to take a 30-minute bus ride to buy. I stained white glasses with lip gloss and talked wisdom with strangers. I visited farms and mountains and beaches. It was the most romantic time of my life and most of it I was completely alone.
There is never a reason to deny yourself a sweet treat at the end of the night.
It is everyone’s first time living life. Not everything is a red flag, a dealbreaker, or unforgivable. Sometimes, it’s okay to give people grace while they figure out this life. You can have standards for the way those in your life should act, while still balancing the fact that people make mistakes. No one has some cheat code for how to be the perfect parent, friend, or partner. A lot of times, it’s just easier to boil it down to the fact that we are all human than to look for meaning behind everyone’s actions. Also, you have to give grace to get it.
Most of your feelings will pass if you just give it time.
Wear a bright and shiny eye color. It is not a perfect science, but most of my best nights have come when I put purple or blue eye shadow on. It brings me back to an eight-year-old version of me playing with my play-makeup.
My deep sense of empathy is the greatest gift my mother has ever given me.
You need to learn what makes you feel better. I have concluded that there is something that can almost always make me feel better. You know what that is? A toasted bagel with cream cheese. So you know what I do after a long, bad day. I eat a toasted bagel with cream cheese.
The internet has made us all lose a significant amount of empathy. I could elaborate on this more, but I think we all know what I am talking about.
Learn to love your boring life. Most of our life is spent running errands, meeting deadlines, finishing chores, and eating. To truly enjoy life you must at least try to enjoy it all.
The first step to being a happy person is being a good person. Hold the door open for people and smile at babies. Let your friends borrow your clothes and tell the girl in the bathroom you like her lip color. Offer to pick your friends up from class and listen to them talk about the same boy for the hundredth time. Tell people their art is cool and you admire their passions. I always say there is nothing worse for your mental health than being a bad person, so be a good person.
The love my sister and I have for each other, some search an entire lifetime for.
Everyone tells you to let go of anger. I disagree. Do I feel you need to carry that anger around with you every single place you go, well no. But I do feel like there a things I will be angry about forever. I will die angry about it. Life is hard and sometimes people don’t treat you the way you deserve. Bad things are happening everywhere we look. There is cancer, famine, and war and that is all allowed to make us angry. I’d rather accept the fact that anger is a part of life than spend my time feeling guilty about that anger. I have anger, and I will hold onto it.
Women in their twenties spend so much time wondering if you like them, they rarely stop to wonder if they like you. I think I should stop doing that. I think we all should.
Sometimes you will cry over a door that had absolutely nothing behind. Sometimes you will enter a door and spend some time in the wrong room. Sometimes you will want so badly to be in the room that you will crawl through a window.
To truly love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that got you there.
I do not care how small of a thing it is; I will always feel like crying is an appropriate response. Sometimes you just need to cry for a minute. Live a dramatic life.
Heartbreak is a reminder that there is still a heart in there. How special it is that you loved so deeply to feel hurt. To feel grief.
Knowledge is one of the few things in life that can be never taken away. I am lucky to have been raised by parents who saw such value in their children’s education, and who held it at such importance in our lives. When I count my blessings, I count that twice.
The author P.J. O’Rourke wrote, “Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes”. It is small gestures of kindness and micro-moments of humility that make all the difference.
The sooner you start doing embarrassing things, the sooner it is no longer embarrassing.
“The birthday when Liv made us all wear wigs to the bar”