Anthems for a 22-year-old girl
You know when you just want to do a million things all at once? All those cool ideas you have, and goals to accomplish? But there’s work, and household chores, laundry, meal prepping, rugs to vacuum, sinks to clean, clothes to mend, clothes to purge, grocery shopping, more work, and more work. But you have those little sparks of things in the back of your head, and maybe they come out when you’re about to fall asleep at night, and you have to try your best to make sense of those sleepy visions to swiftly write them down in your notes app. And then those little things become exciting during the day, when you don’t have time to put towards them, and they distract you. And sometimes they’re so far-fetched that it seems like they’ll never come true. Maybe some of them are more like dreams.
Life since graduation has felt something like this, where heaps of art ideas will come to me all at once and sit in the back of my mind until I can work on them. Sometimes if I sketch things out or write them down it helps, because I can get them out of my system and onto physical paper to help myself visualize. But I don’t have much time to work on them right now, because I work a seasonal job and we’re fully into our busy season. So I have to sit with things until I can dedicate more time towards them.
22 is a weird age for me so far. I’ve been 22 for three months now, and I felt an immediate mindset shift once my birthday happened. I felt some sort of maturity come over me, or maybe some sort of acceptance of a future. I didn’t often find myself visualizing much of my future during college. Everything felt so up in the air for so long, like I had some loose idea of what I expected for myself, but I also felt my path shifting subtly beneath my feet. Every day could herald some new opportunity that could completely change my mind. And now that I’m 22, I can take new things into consideration. I have things I know about myself for certain, and things I don’t. I know that I don’t want to move away. I know that I prefer silver to gold jewelry. I know how I like to wear my makeup. Most of the time. I know what I like for breakfast. I don’t know what my signature perfume is yet, if I have one at all. I don’t know if my bangs suit me better than no bangs (growing them out now). I don’t know if I’ll live in my apartment for three more years, or five more years, or more or less.
When I get stressed, and overwhelmed, and scared, it feels like I know absolutely nothing in the entire world. It feels like I have no direction, and my dreams are too far away. But then I remember I am 22, and I’m not supposed to know much of anything yet. That’s the whole point of my age. I’m learning every day, even though school is over. And it’s little things, like a new song I like, a new word I didn’t know existed, or finally understanding how something works. The future, where I’m a “real adult”, will tick in slowly, with each new day. Que sera, sera. And I do, in fact, know more than I think I do. And all those fun ideas you have won’t leave. They’ll wait for you to have time to work on them. It’s not a rush.
So go get ice cream, or buy a stupid keychain or something. I have a new pair of striped socks I’m excited about, and a new blue scarf. Those things help. Maybe rearrange your room. Or look up how something works that you don’t know much about. Here’s an article I like, of words for emotions and things that are hard to describe. It just feels fitting to add in here.
