A candid look at the messy, uncertain and quietly beautiful chaos of our twenties.

Your twenties are weird. Weird in a soul-spinning, caffeine-fueled, what-even-is-life kind of way. No one really prepares you for just how confusing, chaotic, and beautifully messy this decade can be. Everyone hypes it up as “the best years of your life” — a golden era of freedom, spontaneity, adventure, and late-night revelations under fairy lights. However, in reality, a lot of it feels like trying to keep your head above water in a pool where everyone else seems to be doing laps like they trained for the Olympics, and you’re just doggy paddling in a t-shirt.

There’s this silent pressure, like a buzzing static in the background of everything you do, that tells you you’re supposed to have it figured out by now. Like, by 25 you should know exactly what you want to do with your life, be in a stable relationship, have savings, drink enough water, and maybe even own matching Tupperware. Instead, you’re making existential pros-and-cons lists in your Notes app at 2am and trying to remember the last time you vacuumed.

One of the hardest parts about all of this is the comparison game. Everything feels like a sport in your twenties. In high school, comparison was almost…organized. Everyone was on the same track, taking the same classes, stressing over the same exams, showing up to the same school events. Everyone knew what the “goals” were: get good grades, get into university, do a lot of extra-curricular activities, etc. Everyone was in the same bubble. It made sense that we compared ourselves since we were all running in the same race.

However, after graduation, the track disappears, and everyone is on their own path. It isn’t long until someone is backpacking through Europe, someone else is engaged and another is applying to med school. Simultaneously, someone else might be dropping out of university and moving back home, while another person is starting a business. Then there’s many of us who often are sitting on our beds, eating cereal out of a mug, wondering if it’s normal to feel this lost as supposed “adults.”

We don’t talk enough about how emotionally intense your twenties can be. How isolating it can feel even when you’re surrounded by people. How one moment you’re on top of the world, and the next, you’re sent into a spiral by a reel about career paths. There’s a kind of silent grief that comes with this time — grieving the versions of yourself you thought you’d be by now, the timelines you swore you’d follow, the expectations you’re not meeting.

The term psychologists like to throw around is “emerging adulthood.” It’s that liminal stage — somewhere between adolescence and full-on adulthood — where everything feels up in the air. You’re no longer a kid, but you’re not quite what you thought an adult was supposed to be either. You’re still figuring out what groceries cost, but now you also must think about taxes? You’re expected to chase your dreams and keep your LinkedIn updated? Make big life decisions while still unsure about what kind of milk to buy?

It can be daunting, but here’s the thing no one tells you loud enough. The confusion, uncertainty, weirdness, uncomfortable in-between-ness is what your twenties are supposed to be. This is the decade of firsts, of maybes, of “I think I like this” and “oh, actually no I don’t.” You try, you fail, you learn. You chase the wrong things, you move to cities that don’t feel like home, you say yes when you should say no, and sometimes you do everything right and it still feels wrong. That’s not failure, that’s growth.

It doesn’t always look glamorous. Sometimes it looks like applying to ten jobs and hearing back from none. Sometimes it looks like crying in your car before class. Sometimes it looks like calling your mom because you just need someone to remind you it’s going to be okay. 

Your twenties aren’t a checklist. They’re not supposed to be this linear ladder of success where each rung is another box ticked, whether that’s related to a degree, job, relationship, house, or kids. They’re a time of becoming who you are outside of your childhood, outside of other people’s expectations, outside of what you thought you “should” be doing by now. It’s messy and nonlinear and sometimes deeply uncomfortable — but it’s also so full of potential.

The people who look like they have it all figured out really don’t. Everyone is faking it to some degree. Everyone is carrying doubts they don’t boast about. Everyone has nights where they lie awake wondering if they’re on the right path. Your life is not behind schedule just because someone else’s life is portrayed as loud and visible.

There is no “late” when it comes to your journey. You’re not too late to start or to change. It is not too late to figure it out. Every detour, every pause, every moment of doubt is part of becoming. You are not a problem to be fixed, but a story that is still being written.

It is vital to be gentle with yourself during this period. Allow yourself room to grow without needing all the answers. Romanticize the little wins, whether that’s getting out of bed when it’s hard, texting a friend when you feel low, feeding yourself something that isn’t toast. Celebrate the days that don’t look like much from the outside but take everything in you to get through.

Your twenties are yours. No one else gets to define what they should look like. It’s okay if your path is winding, if your dreams are changing, if you’re still figuring out who you are. You’re not behind — you’re becoming. That becoming of yourself is worthy, beautiful, and enough.