I remember sitting on the floor excitedly waiting for my dad to put down the durian cake where we were celebrating his 30th Birthday, I was almost 4, and I still remember seeing him turn 30. At 30, he is married with 3 kids and has a property of his own. I was nowhere close to where my parents were at their age, and I’ve spend the last few years wondering if I have accidentally wasted my entire 20s.
I kept asking where did all the time go? We used to think that 30 years ago is always going to be the 1970s, but now they meant 1991. I need a lie in, I am still trying to get over the fact here.
I never had a clear-cut goal that were acceptable to society, like working hard in high school so that I could go work hard at a really nice college, so that I could go work hard at some job that everyone respects and pays well. Neither did I accidentally got drunk for 10 years straight, and now I’m 30. To many, I might have wasted my twenties for not living up to society standards, but really even when it seemed like I was wondering around, I am collecting life experiences.
The truth is I actually enjoyed adulthood better than my teenage years. I enjoy having the control over my own lives, for better or for worse. Yes there are moments that I go through heartbreaks and rejections and struggles that make me feel as though the wind has been knocked straight out of my chest, but at the end of the day, every struggle, every triumph, every fresh start belongs to me. There’s a particular kind of contentment and freedom that I felt in adulthood more than anything.
It’s the pride of taking control over your own decision, it’s the joy of making milestones, achievements and ticking off bucket lists, it’s the comfort of knowing that life is going to throw me curves and speed bumps and heartaches but I’m the driver that steer through every single one of them. It’s the little pat I give myself for fighting the way into the kind of adult I have become today. The truth is even though I might have freak out that I’ve used up my twenties, I never want to repeat my twenties all over again.
Adulting might be hard but it’s exactly as tragic or as wonderful as I let it be. And I wish that all my life I’m ready to work for the life I want, it has been a wonderful journey adulting.