A field guide to growing up without growing apart
Man I love menfolk. It’s not that I don’t love women (female empowerment forever!), but I also just really (really) enjoy men, and as a result of spending the last few weekends in the company of more of the opposite sex than usual, I’m reminded […]
It’s Thanksgiving! And there is no better time to thank all the wonderful people and bloggers who’ve inspired and supported us over our first year of blogging. We’re so appreciative for this online community and incredibly shocked by the amount of love we’ve received from you beautiful strangers.
Thanks to Lauren from Life on a Branch and Erin at Roamin 4 Happiness for nominating us as inspirational bloggers. Both of their sites just ooze twenty-somethingness and it’s wonderful to read about their journeys. Talk about inspiring.
And Tanisha at My Knotted Life just nominated us for a Liebster award! We’re sure you’ll find her as adorable as we do. And she crafts!
We were also lucky enough to contribute as guest posters this year. Thanks to Katie at Ask the Young Professional and David at 20somethings in 2013 for featuring our stories and being host to others. We twenty-somethings need all the camaraderie we can get.
And just because we can, here is a list of a few other writers we think you should check out. It’s a Thanksgiving smorgasbord!
So thanks kids. We didn’t expect this little anonymous project of ours to reach anyone except the four of us, but we’re so grateful that it has. Here is to even more connection in the coming year! Thanks so much for being a part of it.
Love,
P.s. Anyone we missed? Of course! Help us spread the word about great authors in the comments below.
I woke up this morning to an email from an old… flame, and I… I don’t really know how I want to process it. Really long story sort of short (read: remember that data project I was working on?), he and I became close during […]
Remember when you were a kid, and your parents took care of buying all the presents for various family members and friends on birthdays and Christmas? Those were the good ol’ days. Not only could you pick out a sweet birthday present for your friend […]
It’s my birthday! And Cindy’s birthday! And we’re turning 25. Holy. Crap.
This time last year Cindy wrote a beautiful ode to our twinship, explaining how learning of our shared birthday has become such an important part of our lives since. This year I wanted to return the love, taking a second to express my gratitude to the universe for allowing me to share a birthday with a friend, especially her.
When I was younger my birthday was the best event of the year. My creative parents allowed me to dream big, putting together epic pie baking events, dress up performances and jewelry box decorating bliss. One year we had a scavenger hunt at the airport, running from terminal to terminal to find a purple suitcase or a photograph of 4 or more people and another birthday we rode the light rail train in circles while we played games and got to know the big city. I even remember my dad making me a PVC pipe teepee for my Pocahontas-themed party one year, my mother helping us make our own fringe covered purses to tote around proudly. Back then birthdays were things to be celebrated, excuses for all your friends to come together to celebrate you (and the Spice Girls), but once you hit high school all that changes.
Suddenly it is no longer cool to plan birthday adventures, and even if you do, good luck getting all of your friends to agree to join in. Jessica can’t stand Brittany and Katie would never have fun doing that, besides, Sally doesn’t have any time anyway. In high school I’d be lucky if I got four or five people together to see a movie and go get ice cream, much less trap all my friends in one room to do something really awesome.
And let’s not forget the added pressure we feel as we’re taught to apologize for getting ‘older.’ All we want to do when we’re younger is grow up and become the people we’re meant to be, but with little warning that optimism is crushed, unexpectedly turned on its head as people remind you again and again that aging is bad. Sure you want your driver’s license and to be 21 so you can go to those cool concerts, but you also know that it’s all downhill from there – birthdays only bringing you closer and closer to the end of your youth ( i.e. the end of your happiness). In high school you learn your birthday is no longer an accomplishment; instead it becomes something to avoid, something you’ve done wrong.
I had low birthday expectations when I moved away for college since my birthday came around only a month in, leaving me with limited time to build my friend group or hope for any type of celebration. Had Cindy not taken me in and allowed me to crash her party my day would have gone something like, “Hey, I’m Booty, want to be my friend and celebrate my birthday even though we just met!?” Instead we ate funfetti and had our first twin competition (wii tennis is intense!), bonding over much more than a shared day of birth and our love of basketball. It was the day I knew I’d found friends I’d have for a while, a turning point in the way my life would go from there on out, a birthday I love to remember.
Ever since I’ve found myself looking forward to our shared birthday, excited to know that no matter how the year went I’d always have someone to celebrate with. And celebrate we did, taking groups of friends out to dinners and bars, exploring arcades and running through city fountains. We stayed up until midnight to buy our first bottle of alcohol together and even stayed in to paint our stomachs on our 22nd just because we’d always wanted to. With Cindy by my side we recreated those birthday adventures of my youth in even more wonderful ways, allowing ourselves to dream big because we had a guaranteed partner, a guaranteed reason to celebrate.
The year after we graduated, Cindy’s soon to be fiancé asked me to help him propose on our birthday, planning an elaborate scavenger hunt and flying in from out of town to surprise her with a ring. I agreed wholeheartedly of course, though admittedly there were moments I was worried that this new anniversary would infringe on our special day. We were already feeling the pressure of graduation and moving forward with out lives, would the loss of this connection make things even harder?
But everything turned out perfectly, because his elaborate proposal allowed me and Cindy (and Snow) to share a day of adventure that I’ll always cherish. When I think of that day, I think of all the fun we had running around Seattle following his clues and enjoying each other. I think of the beautiful photos I got to take of my friend on one of the happiest days of her life. I think of how much I love her and how grateful I am to be her twin.
This year I miss her more than ever, but without her I’ve realized how important it is to ask for what I want on my birthday. No longer do adventures just fall into place, and no longer can I settle for a lame high school get together full of drama. So instead I made the choice to turn 25 in style, spending last weekend in Seattle, visiting Snow and catching up with college friends. Last night I organized a birthday dinner with some old friends who I never get to see and I leave to visit my cousin in Denver tomorrow. It is definitely an overwhelming week, but if not on your birthday when else do you do the things you want?
So thank you world, for giving me a beautiful reason to look forward to my birthday. My twin is an easy reminder that I’ll always have someone to celebrate with, that getting older will always be an accomplishment and that birthdays are a great excuse to do the things you’ve always wanted. I’m so glad to know her. Love you Cindy.
OUR QUARTER LIFE CRISIS IS HERE! In the spirit of me and Cindy turning 25 in a few days, I’ve asked the girls to discuss their Quarter Life Crisis for November’s Condition of The Month. Maybe it has to do with Thanksgiving gratefulness, or maybe […]
Hey there Princesses, I’m alive! And hello there to all you readers of our little blog that helps us 20-somethings stay in touch! It feels like our audience has doubled in the last few weeks I’ve been off the grid and though we get little […]
Let me begin by saying that I am not pregnant. But what if I wanted to be? The idea of starting a family often niggles at the back of my mind, but is usually accompanied by feelings of anxiety. I used to think I could mark the ideal time to get knocked up on my calendar and sit back and wait a few years for that day to arrive, but these days the mere thought of procreating brings with it a lot more complicated and confusing thoughts.
I recently spent an awesome 3 weeks of vacation back in the U.S. of A., and most of that time was spent with my family and my husband’s family. The fun thing about my husband’s family is that his two siblings are both quite a bit ahead of us in the game of life—they each now have 3 children, well, one is still a fetus the size of a banana, but it counts. It’s always super fun to visit our nephews and niece; I love playing with them, cuddling them, and listening to all the cute things they say. And during this vacation we definitely got our fill of the cute kid-ness. Holding the newest baby, or worse, watching my husband hold her, tended to evoke warm, fuzzy feelings about how nice it would be to have one of our own. But then her older brother would poop his pants, and that rosy romantic idea would vanish. In fact, after living with the whole family and all those youngsters for seven straight days, there were moments when I was ready to swear off the idea of kids forever. Not because I don’t love them, but because there were so many painfully obvious differences between the relatively, fun, easy life I currently live and the lives my brothers and sisters-in-law were living. We slept in—they were up half the night with an infant or woken at the crack of dawn by restless toddlers. We kept our stuff neat, organized, and accounted for—they drove themselves crazy searching for the diaper bag that somehow went missing right before we were supposed to leave the house. We spent our days doing whatever we pleased—they were slaves to the schedules, moods, and needs of their kids.
Observing this dichotomy made me feel like I had two warring voices in my head, like if Smeagol was snuggled up against me going on about the fun blessings involved in creating and raising a new life, but meanwhile Gollum was in my other ear screaming and flinging his own feces around.
The way I see it, there are four stages a person goes through in relation to parenthood:
Up until recently I would have considered myself still in stage 1, with bigger fish to fry like enjoying being a newlywed and starting my career. But now, more than a year into my marriage, I can feel myself sliding suddenly into stage 2. If I got pregnant, would it be the end of the world? Probably not. Every month I find myself wondering…what if I didn’t start my period? Honestly, a small part of me kind of hopes that my birth control will fail.
But simultaneously, I love my life, and having a baby would irrevocably change things. No more traveling at the drop of a hat, no more free time to exercise or pursue hobbies, a huge influx in stress and responsibility…when I ponder these changes, I feel more committed than ever to waiting 4-5 years to start having kids, and maybe more!
Then you add in a variety of other considerations, such as the cost of having a baby, how many babies you want to have, and the fact that the risk of birth defects and other problems goes up the older the parents are. Do I want my kids to know my own parents? Because if I do, I should probably get started soon. But what about my career? If I start having kids before I really establish myself as a teacher, I might never go back. I think I’m too young for all this, but on the other hand it might be fun to be a young Grandma someday. It’s all so darn confusing, and there really doesn’t seem to be a perfect time.
So what’s my conclusion? Nothing really, other than that your 20’s have a nasty habit of throwing life-altering dilemmas like these in your face, and that bites sometimes. I’m sticking with birth control and the 4-5 year plan for now and trying to maximize this time in my life…but I don’t want to wait too long. I’m in stage 2. How about you?
I will never have another best friend. When I was little I used to manipulate other people into doing things I wanted by promising to be their best friend. You’d be surprised how often it worked, most people needing little more than an “I’ll be […]
So, money. Necessary for so many things in life, but almost always a source of stress and consternation, no matter how much you have. Managing your money or lack thereof is a central part of being in your twenties, so this month the Princesses weighed […]
Come January I’m getting on a plane and crossing the Atlantic. I have no idea where I’ll end up, how long I’ll stay or really why I’m going. I know I have/need/want to go but I’m having trouble explaining WHY to myself and others. In Part 1 of this post I tried to explain how important figuring out this WHY is and how I’ll need more than a ‘because I can’ to justify this trip. Here are just a few (okay a lot) of the ways to find meaning in my adventure that I’ve thought of in the last few weeks. All of them are close but not quite right. If you think of any more PLEASE let me know.
Ways to Find Purpose in 20-Something Travel:
Pilgrimage. I don’t really identify myself with any particular religion so a spiritual journey to the holy land is out (besides I’m pretty sure the Mormons got it right with Zion), but I could trace my lineage. My ancestors are a Scandinavian melting pot and I’d love to see Denmark, maybe even meet some distant relatives, but is that enough of a justification for a trip? Sure double checking my already graphed genealogy might be interesting, but will it really make a difference in my life? Would my time be better spent elsewhere?
Here is what I want. I want to wake up in the morning and have more to do than sight see. I want to have interesting reasons to talk to strangers and goals that push me out of my comfort zone. I want to set up a meeting with a scientist I found in Budapest or jump on a train with some new friends because they know of a cave that has glow in the dark fish. I want to have a plan that I can decide whether or not to deviate from. I want to have a goal that can evolve as I go. I’m thinking big, I know. But if not now, when? Any advice on finding purpose and meaning in your wanderings? Why have you or your friends traveled? How did they justify it to their friends and family? How did they justify it to themselves?