20.

Thurs 8:28 PM

I turned twenty today. The big two-oh. Whoo, congratulations. Wait, no, what the heck am I talking about? Being twenty isn't a celebratory affair! I mean, 18 years under my parents' roof, another year in a paid dorm, and this year, a paid apartment. It feels like I'm still in my mother's womb.

Well, not exactly. I mean, I definitely have more independence now than at say, age 16. And, I'm not exactly spiteful, so to say, about turning 20. It's just a weird age. Turning twenty. No longer a teenager, yet not really an adult. I'm still within the domain of school, but I'm already being exposed to the realities of this world. I'm sort of stagnating in my youth, yet I am also transitioning into my adult self. It's somewhere between a cocoon and it's metamorphosis, a half-blossomed flower, a fermenting wine. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm growing older, and yet I still feel young. It's like certain parts of my life are ending, and other parts of it are beginning.

Being twenty is weird. Things that were so huge to me before are really insignificant to me now. Like, friends I had in high school, that I vowed I would always care for, these people are just nice mementos of a past that I can never reclaim. We can't help it. I mean, after a certain point things stagnate: people move away, go to different schools, whatever. And you find yourself being pushed to the side, taken out every now and then so you don't collect dust, so you don't grow completely meaningless. But that's not a completely sad thing. I mean, it's just re-prioritization. Different environments dictate different needs, and different things to satisfy those needs.

This was just a thought I had when I tried to reminisce about stuff. If it's your birthday, naturally, you should reflect on your life, right? Another year has gone by; time to take inventory of all your memories. But when I do look back, everything just feels hazy to me, as if they weren't really fulfilling. They seem a lot smaller now. That's not to say, however, that I am filled with regrets within the last 20 years of my life. I did everything that I wanted to. Not necessarily everything I COULD do, but I acted in such a way that I wanted, whether it was at the crux of my potential or not.

To elaborate on this point, what I'm getting at is that although I am disappointed in certain past decisions, I don't necessarily regret them. So I was a sadsack in high school. Big deal, that made you just a little bit cheerier in high school. So you weren't able to stay on a sports team. Whoop-de-doo, all that time was spent studying and you're in UCI now, not some shitty community college. You fight with your sister all the time, and you don't have a normal relationship with your sibling. It's that struggle that made you too empathetic, and more understanding of emotional turmoil.

However, I cannot say I am fully without regrets. I regret not asking out one chick simply because my friend had dated her. I regret saying certain things that ruined an otherwise fine friendship. I regret not reading and writing sooner, waiting for appropriate schooling instead of taking the initiative to learn by myself. All in all, these regrets are simply so because I feel that they are wasted efforts, things that I dwelled on for far too long in such a way as to make me stagnate in my growth.

Again, back to my point, that 20 is a really weird age for me. I definitely recognize that I've matured in a way, but I also feel that I'm behind a lot of people. I can talk to people, but I still suck socially. It's a whole age of contradictions, little things that have been hammered out only to give way to things that still need to be worked on. I've concentrated in things that have improved me, but also held me back. Staring at sights along the road, pondering at the use of it all while everyone continued on the tour. I'll know THAT particular segment very well, but everyone else knows so much more of the road ahead of me.

It's been a good trip so far, but I need to catch up. But, I still have a lot of time on my hands, and I'm happy to have lived this long.