Five Things My Parents forgot to tell me about being 25

Five Things My Parents forgot to tell me about being 25

Your 21st birthday is a big celebration. 22nd birthday is a breeze. However, when it comes to age 25, I’ve realized that there were a few things my parents forgot to mention, especially in the mental stability department.

Adulthood is one of the hardest roads. I find myself questioning, WHY in the hell did I wish to be an adult when I was 10? I counted down to my birthdays.

Now that I'm working, living and paying for my own things from time to time, I wished that I had never blown those candles at all. What I have come to see at the age of 25 is that adulthood has a beautiful garden of roses. I can pick the ones I want, any color I want, and no one is really there to stop me. Yet, when I went to pick those roses, I got pricked with thrones and poison ivy attached to them.

In this list of five things I wished my parents had told me about being 25-years-old, I want you to remember that everybody’s experience with this age is different. However, you ask a grown man or woman pass their 30s, and some will say that the age they wished to forever avoid was 25 or early twenties.

Five Things My Parents Forgot to Tell Me About Age 25:

5. You’ll question everything you were ever taught about life and watch it backfire in your face: I have noticed from my own personal work with children that what they are being taught and what I was taught are two different things. Our children today are being taught to notice everything. It’s a beautiful lesson in teaching our children about diversity and being open to new ideas. Our children, however, are also learning that discipline and standards aren’t the same. I was taught that discipline and standards were the same. Now I find myself really disillusioned with what discipline really means anymore.

4. Relationships are hard to hold on to. After turning 25, I ended one of many relationships with a person that I cared about. We were together for one year, and even now a year later after us breaking up, I’ve given up on the practice of getting a new one. For a lot of twenty year olds like me, we’re seeing on Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube all these beautiful engagements, baby showers, and weddings for friends and family. I know I’m not the only one who does one or two things: scroll passes the video or sit there and cry to see the happiness this person I know is experiencing. I have discovered in my years of back and forth relationships that being 25 and in a relationship is really the first milestone to step. For a lot of us, we want the family but the thought that half our friends are working on it now is quite a culture shock.

3. You can’t just be yourself. You have to modify everything. I really don’t need a big paragraph description of this. I can’t find a place to express myself and even if I do, I’m either a hater or taking it too seriously. I’ve been told once that I am too brutally honest with people and I always ask myself, well if I’m not now, will you have the same response when a stranger on the street does the same thing? I was taught as a kid that everyone is entitled to their opinions, you can’t change their thoughts. You can only redirect them. I think of that every day and recognize that a lot of people nowadays can’t wait to correct you to outcast you but fail to redirect the thinking.

I know what I said.

2. When you change your direction in life, people will say you’ve changed. Since becoming 25, there have been friendships cut off that I can’t even count. I’ve moved from place to place, meet new people all the time and find myself not really interested in the business of friends either. A lot of my friends know that I am a loyal person and if you’ve stuck through my craziness at times, then our friendship still exists. As a kid, I fought hard for the approval of my peers because I was a kid with not a lot of friends. As I have become 23, I have realized that I really can’t expect any approval from anybody but me. As Steve Harvey has said from his father, you can’t get in the butt kissing business. Everybody ain’t gonna like the way you kiss it.

1. Your patience is wearing itself out. Breakpoints are coming, so prepare yourself. Recently, I experienced a solid two weeks of feeling not like myself. I showed my frustration at work, cried at home and on campus as much as possible, and even let my cell phone die just to avoid having to talk to anyone. It all happened in the month of February, and I find myself counting down the days to March. At age 25, adjustment to new things is a difficult process. We jump to anger much quicker in our 20s and more importantly, we find ourselves really disconnected to everything now. I didn’t realize how much I missed my childhood until I registered for my classes this summer, got new hours at work, a utility and cable bill in the mail, and having to sacrifice my savings for my rent. The reality that childhood is done and I’m responsible for myself is a heavy burden to carry on my shoulders, and probably the shoulders of many 25-year-old people like me, shaking their heads to everything I’m saying.

I might have used this article to vent or to show all the possible outcomes of being 25, but I will end this on a positive note. I can guarantee you that being 25 has allowed me to do things I never had the courage to do. I could never let my honesty show, learn to be more patient, and more importantly learn to love my imperfections. It has opened a floodgate of opportunities for me to learn, both positive and negative.

I’m just holding on to my sandbags though, hoping the level won’t break.