The Five People You Meet in Your 20s
Tags: Coming Of Age, Twenty Something, Friends, Spirituality

I vividly recall a session with a beautiful stranger who described a future version of me so wild and far from my current reality that I made it my mission to find this David Bowie version of me. I fell in love with her.

She, a total stranger, saw in me the grandness and intensity that I could be. She personified the future version of me that was already so visible to her. She pinpointed where I was and where I could be.

It's not that that future me isn't real or achievable, it's just that I’d buried her so deep within me that I didn’t realize my own potential. As I walked out of that shop that day, I realized that for the past 28 years I had tried to fit into the societal definition of success and prosperity that I lost sense of what it meant to be me. The real ME.

For months leading up to this moment, I had been running towards an undrawn edge. A cliff that I knew I had to jump from if I wanted to move into the next phase of my life more authentically.

As I prepare to enter my 29th year of life, I can’t help but reminisce on all who have accompanied me to this point in my life. All who have walked alongside me every step of the way. All who provided a safety net. All who are looking forward to me finding that more authentic, future version of me that I so desperately crave.

So, inspired by Mitch Albums, The Five People You Meet in Heaven here’s The Five People You Meet in Your 20s. The people who gave me the courage to jump off course and begin to rediscover who I really am.

The Five People You Meet in Your 20s

1. Your new family

Better yet let’s call these folks the ones who “knew the struggle”. Your “day one’s”. The friends that saw the evolution of high school you to pre-adulthood you. The ones that shared that cheap plastic-bottle-vodka with you. The ones who made you follow through on all that hard shit you talked. The ones that held you through a lot of those firsts – first heartbreak, first glimpse into your parents real relationship, first drug use, first death. Those ones. The ones who were on their own journey confronting their own demons all the while subsconsciously teaching you from their evolution every step of the way.

The folks that as you near 30 are still considered some of your best friends even if the last time you saw them you blacked out. Because you were all in it together. Walking towards an unknown destination.

2. That guy that makes you that girl

You know, that guy that cheats on you throughout your whole relationship but you refuse to see his faults. That guy your friends only tolerate because they want to see you happy – and clearly you’re happy with the situation. That guy that when you finally realize all the shit he’s done to you makes you down a bottle of cheap wine and cry yourself to sleep. That guy. Because after him, you become that hardass, I don’t need a man, I can be a player too type of girl.

Yeah I needed him. Even if only to teach me that I deserved so much more.

3. Your second new family

So eventually you lose touch with your first family and before you know it you’ve acquired a new one. These are all the rando’s that somehow all mesh. The folks you meet at your adult job, at the gym, at the random class you took to “better yourself”, the friend of a friend.

These folks are probably the ones that you currently plan happy hour outings with, or ratchet adult vacations where you can afford to splurge a bit more. You can ask them for work related advice and network with their work friends as you job shop. You probably also download your latest Tinder associate experiences judgement free and laugh about how the date went.

4. The new guy

So after that guy (from #2) comes the new guy. The one that you met while you’re at the prime of your that girl stage. The one that at first makes you treat him like any other guy you’re talking to but quickly realize he’s not like the rest. He says ILY first, drives thousands of miles to see you, is basically ready to marry you. He’s the one that gives you a major reality check that they aren’t all like that guy. Good men do exist. You can be loved, pampered, and put first. Late nights with the boys are literally just hanging with the boys. He sends you “I’m home” texts even when they’re not required. He’s the guy that makes you rethink your whole perception of relationships.

And then you go and fuck shit up because … he’s “not the one”.

Because by this point you’re looking to recruit your husband. And the mere thought of having to settle down with one person for the rest of your life when the relationship is good but not great… scares you to death.

This can quite possibly be the reason you began thinking of jumping off the cliff in the first place. Because when you find your person you’re supposed to know with your whole mind, body and soul… right?

5. Your Spiritual tribe aka Faith

Somewhere in your 20s, I can’t really pinpoint where, you reconnect with your faith. That child-like innocence that makes you stop and acknowledge all the blessings in your life. The people, your job that allows your lifestyle, healthy family members, your car, food in your fridge, a roof over your head. It just quietly sneaks up on you. From one day to the next you just find yourself being thankful.

And it’s with this newfound faith that you determine it’s ok to leave the new guy. It’s ok to jump over the cliff. Because you’re backed by this infinite faith that there is something better, something bigger. It’s faith that allows you to know that when you find the right one… you’ll know. It will vibrate at your core and the rest will flow naturally.

It’s faith that allows you to trust so blindly that everything will flow in divine timing. Faith is the only guarantee that you will succeed. It’s faith the one that backs up conviction. It’s the tribe of like minded folks that encourage you to throw your hat over the fence and figure out the rest later – because faith eventually becomes the money you never had, the love you never experienced, the strangers you never thought you’d meet.

If there is anything that I’m thankful for in my 20s – it’s not just the diversity of people I've had the pleasure to meet and work with, the diversity of countries and cities I’ve had the opportunity to visit, the range of extreme happiness and extreme sadness I’ve experienced. It’s the level of faith I’ve been able to achieve. Unbeknownst to me how to measure, I realize that for the first time ever, I’m able to wholeheartedly call it faith … and be ok with that.

It’s a realization that the collective whole has only just begun to experience the infinite amount of love available to us.

It’s the blind trust that faith in love will always win.

So here’s to 29.

The last year of my twenties. The first year of the new, unapologetic, me.