to preface, i actually know a lot of people who had an amazing time being 21! i think most of the lows were due to poor decision-making and bad luck in my love life which can happen at any age š at the same time i still hosted and attended a lot of cool events and parties; i tried new things and made some amazing friends; i lived on my own for the first time that summer and had a few cool academic accomplishments! so despite the trauma and heartbreak lol, i learned SO so much about myself and the world which i am grateful for. ā¤ļøāš©¹
also, what i do think is a common experience for many 21 year olds is having a lot of growth through that year, which is never a bad thing!
Jun 11, 2024
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i was 21 in 2018 - which i feel like was a great year overall.
my boyfriend and i had just started dating, so we spent that whole summer falling in love - he worked at a bar and i would go see him every night and we would hang out there after everyone left until sunrise. those are some of my best memories!
i had bright pink/bleached hair and was in a really confident place in my life - i felt good with my personal style, my body image, my mental health. i was working a barista job that i really enjoyed, and living with my roommates (now best friends!) in the best apartment ever.
i was in the 2nd/3rd year of my bachelorās and really enjoying my studies and creative projects, got involved with my student climate justice protests, and just really enjoyed the social life of being in university.
looking back today, what i miss most about being 21 is how much i knew myself. i lost a lot of that confidence over the years and i often look back to that time as a marker of where i would like to get back. i was just better at having fun - and i think thatās exactly was 21 is for.
take risks! trust your intuition! have FUN!
Jun 11, 2024
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I began my 21st year with my head in the toilet of a man I was seeing. He held my hair back as I repeatedly wailed āwhy donāt you want to be with meeeeeā. Barely anyone had turned up to my party earlier. That year had many such sad moments like this, but it also transitioned into one of the most fun times of my life. I had a really bad depressive episode, but it was the first time Iād felt really heard by my family went home for an bit to be looked after, I also had a best friend at uni, Alice who looked after me so well and weāre still friends today. Eventually I graduated uni and I moved in with one of my best friends, Rohan. We worked at a bar together and the people at that bar became my family for a while, I stayed in Sheffield my uni town for 5 more years because of that bar. we still meet up a couple times a year for a reunion. I had purple hair and I was drunk a lot, I cried a lot, I had so much anxiety, I wrote essentially nothing but I read more than I had in the 3 years of uni prior to it. I had so much fun working at that bar, I met so many people and danced so much. slept with far too many musicians which was often traumatic but means I have some great stories and I learnt a lot about myself. 21 is really hard, but itās also really fun, and it all counts and it all means something. I look back at 21 year old me with so much love and compassion, one day you will feel the same about yourself and youāll be so proud of that person.
Jun 11, 2024
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and this has been the most difficult year of my life 2 date. but hey. i am stronger for it. i'm lucky to have found who i can count on and i'm learning to do what makes my soul happy. after school in may 2023 i moved back home to NYC and while parts of that felt like a homecoming i also felt spit out into the World directionless and freaked. but i've been finding my sea legs and keep reminding myself this is the widest breadth of life i've ever lived. young adulthood is wack which simply builds character.
21 taught me that EVERY PAINFUL EXPERIENCE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO DIG INWARD. as i approach the end of this year, i can say i truly know myself.
happy almost (?) birthday <3
Jun 11, 2024
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being traditionally cool is really quite boring and iterative, and itās actually very cool and sexy to geek out about something you like or share bits of knowledge on a topic youāre passionate about
Aug 17, 2024
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i had it for a little over a year until i was like wow this is actually terrible! i genuinely think it has negatively impacted society by ruining peopleās attention spans, having a horrific algorithm, and most of all by the most mind-numbing or outright harmful trends -
fake words that people now use IRL (āunaliveā), trad wife tiktok, shein hauls, body-focused fitness vids that encourage fatphobia and unhealthy habits, shallow political/feminist theory and queer discourse, āalpha maleā podcaster tiktok, encouraging overconsumption in general, trends ruining local spots or niche thingsā¦ the list goes on
Aug 17, 2024
a million times cooler than the lackluster āsleekā tech color palette used today
Feb 22, 2025