This week I turn 20-years-old. I officially will be out of my teenage years and will become a young adult.

However, I’ve always felt like a young adult anyways. I think my experiences with grief and other common growing pains have always made me mature for my age. Which I’ve always found a blessing. 

Being praised for my young maturity always boosted my ego. It somehow felt like an advantage to be able to understand adults and almost relate to how they felt sometimes. 

Yet, as I turn 20 now, I wonder if my fast mental growth was a curse. 

Did I miss out on my teenage years? 

Do I have to settle down now into a career? 

Is my period of young freedom over? 

A million questions hit me as my fear of aging grows stronger.  I can’t believe I was dying to turn this age when I was ten. Yet, I am only turning 20. I’m still so young.  

When I imagine turning 20 now, I imagine myself making it up to my teenage self for all the years I stayed home and feared what was outside. All the social anxiety escaping itself from my body. My habit of being a homebody breaking itself and turning into the habit of balancing a social life. 

I imagine the Roaring 20s. 

A time of exclusive lavish parties for the wealthy and the newly wealthy from this easy money period to become reckless in the city. Living under prohibition and sneaking off to speakeasies dancing to jazz. The American Dream coming to life. 

A time when music and fashion soared. The voluminous hairstyles and shiny jewelry that women wore. It sounds like my dream. 

The women walked around glamorously shining in glitter dresses that were shorter than the men who try to talk to me at parties. I too plan to spend my twentieth birthday in true Roaring 20s fashion. Although it is not my golden birthday, I plan to wear all gold.

A gold glitter dress with fringes that dangle and dance with every move. And of course, as short as their dresses. 

Besides the fashion, even the lifestyle amazed me. I have always pondered on celebrities’ glitz and glamour lifestyles or just the wealthy in general. Of course, everything is not exactly how it seems or appears to be on social media. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting that. 

Just like the nation in the Roaring 20s, I hope my 20s can be filled with at least some easy money, especially since I want to get my master’s after my undergraduate time at Mercy. Can’t wait to spend over $100,000 in my 20s. 

I think a lot of people my age can recall the times of the 1920s through the eyes of the great novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

I read the novel in high school. I don’t remember much of it; besides how terrible the film contrasted with the book. And the Daisy Buchanan. 

Sure, she made the wrong choice in marrying Tom Buchanan. But I admired her character in the way Gatsby viewed her before that.

He saw her charm, class, and graciousness. This is my ideal goal of how to be as a woman in my 20s and beyond. However, my weekends will still make the time to party like the woman of the Roaring 20s. 

His love for her was strong. So strong he devoted his life to winning her love with great fortune. She was innocent, although she was aware of her husband’s cheating. But her choice wasn’t about love. She didn’t think about love. She thought about her needs and being secure in life.

This isn’t exactly what I wish to experience in my 20s. I’d love to experience my first love or maybe multiple loves. But I want to put myself first. Keep in mind my needs and what will make me feel secure. 

My 20s will include putting myself first. Making sure I look lavish and live wealthily. 

Eventually, the Roaring 20s ended with the Stock Market Crash of 1929 followed by a depression in the country. 

I can only hope my twenties won’t have such a dramatic and depressing end into my 30s.