Enjoy your twenties: A Plea

I think everyone should enjoy their twenties. this is the golden age. you're going to learn more in your twenties than any other decade in your life. i have learnt more in this second year of this decade than i have learnt my entire life. my views have been shaped and changed and shaped and changed again, i've gone through experiences that i never thought i'd go through, i've loved, i've cried more in my twenties than my entire years on earth and this is frankly not an exaggeration.

but that's the best thing about your twenties. you're old enough to be taken seriously, to be considered an adult, to drink, but you're also young enough for your mistakes to be forgiven, to be given a get out of jail free card. you're young enough to love and fail and get up again and throw yourself right back into love, you're young enough to be rejected and to reject, to give your heart and have it rejected, but you're still young enough to heal from the callouses that your heart will inflict on you.

you should have fun in your twenties, you should dance in the rain and get drunk and dance with strangers at a bar at one in the morning and kiss that cute boy across the hall from you because you want to, you should go bar hopping because soon you'll be fourty and you'll be that old woman in the club that you and your friends sneer at now.

you should stay indoors and drink your corona and get drunk within the corners of your bed and read books that will take you to nigeria and accra and take a walk through italy and france and through the streets of london. you should make that recipe in that cook book that you bought swearing you'd cook through it once you got your own place and your own money.

you should fall in love. lots of times or not at all or once. when you get your heartbroken you should ball up in bed and cry and feel your heart literally break and cry and cry and cry and drink and pray and drink and call him a million times and beg and cry and repeat until you feel better, until you can get up and make breakfast and order yourself flowers even though you hate them, until you delete his number and smile at your friends and fall into the arms of another, until you can get up and travel to that city that he kept promising he'd take you to that he never did, until you can get up and finally join the rest of the world.

you should go to brunch. all the time. brunch is the new breakfast. everyone is doing it. why eat at 9 when you can eat at 11 or 12 and call it brunch? plus it's acceptable to drink during brunch, i know!! you should totally brunch.

you should find something you like and make a dedicated hobby out of it. you should find something you hate and make money from it. if you find something you like that you can make money from...well, you're one of the lucky ones and you should stick to it. it's your twenties, you don't have kids, work hard. get up in the morning and work hard, kiss all the arse you have to, meet all the people you have to. work hard. stay on that grind and save! save! save! save for the days when you've had enough of that shitty job and just want to quit. save for the unexpected events. practice your poker face every morning before you leave for work. smile often. complain when you need to. i don't care that there are hungry kids in africa...well, i do but this is not a suffering olympics, complain if it'll make you feel better then shut up and figure out a way to make it all better.

there will never be a decade like this one. there will never be a decade with this many opportunities and this many love stories. there will never be a decade like your twenties. so please, please make the best of it and above all, enjoy it and learn and learn and toss down a shot every chance you get, you'll need it.

love,
leggy.