Your 20’s Are For Crying

For those of you who have been waiting, I am sorry. I would like to start off chapters 20 with a massive thank you.

These chapters have been prolonged for around eight weeks, due to my own insecurities, the pressure that comes from this human experience, and imposter syndrome that creeps into my bones the moment it senses confidence.

I never want to leave you in the dark, but the story will be told eventually - for now coming back to this - reminds me that although I am on the cusp of my thirties. Your twenties really are for crying, and I have three more years of this particularly intense learning process.

We’re here together.

My previous chapters' were nominated as a top story. I woke up on June 29, 2021 with a sinking pain in my chest, of potentially not being good enough for anything; not good enough for this. Honestly like who would want to read my word?

There are so many other beautiful souls, with more incising rhetoric, soulful stories, and playful allegories; who are born to do this. I was just wondering if my words really had weight behind them. Not even three minutes later, I opened my work email to a confirmation that my soul on the page had been picked as a top story, and was able to touch the lives of so many.

That those same hands pulled me out of the self deprecating hole of despair, and back into reality.

I have a gift. WE have a gift, all of us, and only a few of us are gifted in metaphors, and imagination. Some can sculpt it from clay, or with colors, some are simply artists in the way they move, and a few are covered in ink, and similes.

Your twenties are for crying came to me when I was about twenty-two. I had lived one hell of a life, and had hurt many people I cared for. I was struggling with sobriety, my mental health.

I had never felt like I was capable of anything more than the checkout counter. I began journal(s) of all of the epic, inspiring, harmful, hurtful, and heart wrenching stories I had collected throughout my few years into early adulthood. The pain of loving, losing, and living.

I want to share them with you.

Loneliness is one hell of a disease, whispering in your ear that no one understands. If anyone is out there struggling with this voice like I was at twenty. You are not alone. We honestly are never alone, no matter how far we choose to wonder, or where we choose to hide our most intimate self.

I’ve said it time, and time again but the beauty in art, are all of the different perspectives, people, and pleasures that come from a single source. The messages that one piece of art; can transform, and connect us through love, acceptance, provide a different lens of truth, and beauty. This is where my validation lies. In a mirror of all of the most delicious parts of you.

So, for those drawn to this, thank you.

For those of you who may not resonate with it but send it to a family, friend in need, thank you.

Your twenties are for crying. Not always heartbreak, or rage, but from profound self discoveries through the connection of other kindred souls. Through liked minds. As promised, keep a lookout over the next few months for the rest of my chapters to be released on the twenty-ninth date of each month.

Thank you.

I could say it until I’m blue in the face, and I still don’t believe it would be enough.

Sincerely.

Chapter 20

Happy twentieth year of astounding existence!

With that being said, remember when I suggested buckling the fuck up?

Yeah well, prepare yourself for massive shift, and change in all areas of your life; in your perspective, interests, and all relationships.

The year from twenty to twenty-one for me, was brutal. Yes, nineteen was the year for me the matrix fell, and I was forced to look in the mirror at myself; but the following year - year twenty? Fuck.

Twenty to twenty-one was the year I had to implement all I had discovered previously.

In reality everything I was pushing aside to learn for later was forcefully being pushed to the forefront of my lessons' playbook.

The universe sensed my fear and hurled lessons my way. Specifically the ones' I wasn't asking for; the ones' I was praying would never become my own reality.

So I denied this. I would binge drink, or go on a camping trip - to literally trip so I would be able to forget the present. Then I’d scramble to get things done. Or falsely accept the manifestations of me not stepping into my own present.

I was late everywhere I went, locked myself out of my home, and vehicle more than I would like to address. Dove into heavy forms of healing through unsafe, unhealthy practices. Quit school, started selling drugs - I’m not here to glamorize drug use - I’m here to tell you what I was doing. Here to tell you what I failed to see, failed to do, and failed to take accountability for.

I had denied my soul for the very last time when I had turned seventeen.

From then on it was an uphill battle to be able to even decode my inner intuition, and gut feeling. Through therapy, and recent realizations I have come to find that this vast experience sometimes cannot be explained and the present self had to experience the darker side of its' own reality to experience the light.

The bittersweet sting of duality and simple coincidence. Some things just happen for a reason but they create dynamic change of positive ripples.

There was a lot I held against myself. Mistakes I had made in the past that I wore on my forehead. Carrying that energy and refusing to forgive myself. Which slowly turned to rage. Which turned into the denial of my own present reality. Which as you can guess turned into a complete denial of self and slow simmering self-persecution.

With no one else to blame but me.

My advice in that regard is following the previous advice from chapters nineteen to twenty; do whatever the fuck you want.

With the added advice of chapter twenty being be courteous of how your energy effects another. You are responsible for your actions, your feelings and what you refuse to communicate.

It wasn’t a lesson a learned for quite awhile. We are taught to be selfish in our late teens and early twenties. Although this is true for most circumstances; in your twenties you learn the importance of selflessness and self accountability.

One may not be able to grasp it yet, but being twenty you begin to see that some of the things you see as bad; become necessary in the end. You may not see it ever, or understand the benefits but you do begin to understand that everything really does happen for a reason.

Not so blind willingly and hurtful 'Oh everything happens for a reason' - but accepting the reality that the mind sets the intention and body executes action.

Energy is real and it all comes back to you. You are creating and manifesting how you want to be addressed by how you address others.

You are sculpting your own reality and understanding that life is a mirror. That fate isn’t up to chance, it is up to choice.

By accepting this, the moments become brighter and ones' true decision making skills become easier to maintain because it becomes less about logic, and more self inclusive realizations.

You come to the realization that you can take control of every aspect of your life. How you choose to react to situations, and how you choose to comfort and teach your self when you wish to change your reaction.

I may be just venting into the void currently, but when I was twenty I was running from my own reality. Denying how my crudeness, vulgarity, and silence were effecting the choices, travels, and relationships around me.

I began to understand the importance of the phrase leaving someone broken; whole after you’ve met or left them. Unable and somewhat unwilling to accept this, I didn’t like the things I saw in others because they were holding up a mirror to myself. Instead of understanding that, I began the longest marathon of self; and ran. Judged, lied, cheated, and scammed. Scammed myself mainly, out of healthy coping mechanisms, and healthy relationships. Scammed myself out of a life with true real life conflict resolution. Scammed myself out of real relationships. Filled with love instead of manipulative conditional love.

I reacted out of fear, and my personal mental state as well as my physical safety was presently at risk. Ignorance is bliss but it still wont save your life like common sense and intuition. When those two are silenced? You're dancing with your sadistic - unchecked ego.

Id like to point out, we need our ego. A healthy ego in check, will allow you to be healthy, and communicate your needs effectively. A healthy ego will be able to alert you of danger, or remind you to be self involved, less critical. A healthy ego, a balanced ego with self and soul can create a ripple of perfect flow electrifying your emotions, and vivid feelings allowing for you to properly decode ones' self.

Instead I had manifested everything I hated, and was cornered by a hall of mirrors reflecting the images I was trying to escape right back to me. The deeper I fought to remain ignorant, the darker my encounters would become. When you walk through this life not claiming responsibility, or judging a situation ending with "I never want ___" that is basically like you exclaiming to the universe that you in fact do want whatever you are saying you hate, or do not want.

By saying you will never do something so many times it creates a vortex of opposing energies. Instead take the moment, and look at the wound where the ego is screaming from.

What part of me is looking to be seen?

Is my anger coming from a place that is needing repair, or potentially warning you of potential threats?

Am I judging? **maybe a co-worker because there is something you admire and wish to possess in yourself?**

Am I judging or assuming a situation or position too harshly?

My advice is to put yourself first, to be gentle but open minded.

Hold yourself accountable, and work through it. Like water, gentle but eroding away unnecessary, unhealthy, and most likely learned skills; that will not be helpful for your journey.

Think of everything like a bag. What are you carrying with you each day? Your energy should not be based or depend on anyone else but one must understand the responsibility of our own energy and take responsibility for it and our actions.

If there is anything I needed to know. It would be to stop judging. Some things just are. Some never receive justice and others continue to harm, but ultimately the only control we have, which is little to none - is how we spend our present minutes.

Stop judging, stop taking everything so seriously. This doesn't mean show up on E - this means trusting that you can fly when you feel the ground buckling at your feet. This means unapologetically filling up a space. Creating so much light, that the negativity is forced to retreat into darker spaces.

Befriend your anxiety, ask them what they seek. Try new things, even if it means doing it alone. Hold a safe and quiet space, for anything you do not understand. Wish for the health of others, and send a prayer out for any neighbors in need. Actions speak louder than words. No one expects you to come here perfect, our society creates that basis of a false need. You're perfect. Now just go out there, and try to make the world a better place by lighting your torch and showing others how brightly it burns, some will be jealous, and others who are doing the work will gravitate into your space.

I like to think this is how communities where made. Just really ordinary people, leaning into the ordinary, and holding sacred spaces of beauty and vulnerability.

Sometimes your twenties are for crying and it isn't because of heartbreak. Sometimes, what opens the flood gates is this electrifying intensity of unexplainable microevents that create the big picture. Sometimes, your twenties are for crying because you're finally waking up to how priceless this gracious gift truly is.

Sometimes, happiness has no where to go but to flood outwardly. Saturating our skin, healing from within, and coating our souls through precious teary-eyed grins. You're twenties are too precious to waste. Take it from me, I am halfway through them and spent them trying to conform. I am here to tell you that, there is nothing more precious than you, beginning this journey.

Never forget that you are not alone. Nothing feels better than accepting yourself, standing in your presence, without the need of substances' because you are the high. You are the experience, you are Gods’ interpretation of beauty, art, and imperfect perfection.

Don't forget to stop and smell the roses but also never forget to lay amongst the weeds and change your perspective point to the stars. They seem so small, yet are fiery balls of electric light burning so brightly they can be seen through stormy nights even millions of miles away.