I’ve noticed an abundance of songs about being 23.
Specifically about turning 23.
“I just can't wait to be all grown up and 23 - maybe I’ll get married soon and buy a house with three bedrooms and settle down and get a dog and make my partner get a job” - 23 - Wallice
“Tomorrow I turn 23, and it feels like everyone hates me. So how old do you have to be to live so young and careless, my wish is that I cared less at 23” - 23 - Reneé Rapp
Theres something about this age.
Something I think about as I am in the last month of my 22nd year.
Is it that 23 feels like the first serious age?
18-20 is just waiting for 21.
22 is basically still 21.
23 feels like if you don’t have it figured out, you’re now behind.
And the longer you’re behind, the harder it is to catch up.
Most people that went to college have graduated.
People you know from school start to get married.
Maybe you have your first adult job.
Maybe it seems like everyone but you has one.
Maybe you start to feel the pressures you’ve always heard about, but have never associated yourself with.
Because you still feel 16.
Why are these adult pressures being applied to you?
“I swear 16 was yesterday, but now I’m closer to 28 - I don’t mean to keep making it about me, everybody feels like this at 23. I know I’m not unique, but I’m a drama queen. I don’t know why im surprised, it’s just a quarter life crisis” - Quarter Life Crisis - Taylor Bickett
Maybe you’re not in a place of having your life figured out, and it feels like everything is falling apart.
Maybe you’re in the same place you were a year ago and hate it.
Maybe you’re starting to feel like you’re reverting back to your unhealed teenage self.
What if you have a pastry career that you abandoned at 21?
What if you have no degree to fall back on, and it feels like it’s too late to start one at this point?
What if you don’t even want one?
What if you just want to travel?
Go on cruises with the person you love?
Have dinners with your family?
Enjoy your parents while they’re still here and alive and youthful?
Appreciate freedom and adventure while you’re young?
But that youth is dwindling.
You don’t feel set up for the next 10 years.
You can’t even imagine the next 10 years.
You hope to maybe live in the UK or France then.
You wish and dream and hope.
But what are you actually doing to achieve that?
Is it better to be free but behind?
Who even decided these standards?
You want to be able to tell your extended family things at Christmas that are impressive and make your parents look good.
They’ll always mention your abandoned pastry path.
Everything else will be disapointing to them.
You’re not a baker in a theme park or married so what even is there to mention, in their eyes.
What about when you’re suddenly 30 and unmarried?
You surely cannot mention your life partner to them.
She doesn’t fit the perfect southern ideal.
A spinster is a better image than a lesbian.
You don’t want to deal with the fallout and changed perception.
You’d rather be an unknown vague disapointment than a known proud disappointment.
So either way you’ll forever be a disapointment.
You’ll never have your cousin’s perfect face and her perfect boyfriend.
You’'ll always be the weird homeschooled cousin.
So do you focus soley on yourself and not disappointing you?
There’s still time to figure out what you want and can achieve out of life.
So young and full of life and love and joy.
Youth is dwindling by the day.
You already have gray hairs.
Lines that won’t fade from your face.
You know it’s just going to get worse.
One day you’ll wake up and see your mother in the mirror.
Does she feel this unprepared and unready too?
She had a degree and husband at your age.
But did she also feel this way?
Could she imagine the next 20 years of her life?
You might not know where life will take you.
But there’s still so much life to live.
You can find solace in knowing you’re not alone in this struggle.
Most people do feel like this at 23.
Or at least they do at some other point in their life.
The strange struggle of being alive is a lonely but shared struggle.
Try to make others happy.
“I hope that I’ll see 24. I hope I’ll understand me more. I hope my bed is off the floor. I hope that I can care less, but I’m afraid to care less…” - 23 - Reneé Rapp
