I decided I wanted to marry my wife at 21. This was a bit younger than our friends around us but weā€™d been dating since we were 14 and I just knew I wanted to do it. My 21th year around the sun was spent working like a dog for an engagement ring and to save for the wedding. I really hunkered down that year to focus on the goal. It helps to know due to my legal situation at the time (undocumented citizen) I couldnā€™t go to school so I went straight to work from 18. I think 21 began to shift my head towards engagement and marriage and all that. Did I miss out on the traditional / typical 21st year of fun? Sure. But looking back at 21 from the comfortable seat of 30, Iā€™m thankful for that year and the work I was able to do and the money I was able to save to get to where I am today.
Jun 11, 2024

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happy (early?) birthday!! šŸŽ‰ Idk what advice to give because i feel like the 20-somethings now are more emotionally aware than the 20-somethings from even as recent as a decade ago, but tune into your body, give yourself grace, and listen to othersā€™ stories without feeling pressured to model your life after someone elseā€™s. & if you donā€™t know what you want your life to look like yet thatā€™s okay! ā¤ļø At 21 I was in my senior year of college and engaged to be married within the year after graduation. In the southern religious environment we were in this wasnā€™t abnormal, but in retrospect that was soooo young to get married and I donā€™t think I would have so quickly if I hadnā€™t been so desperate to get out of a problematic family situation that involved some financial abuse. Despite changing A LOT over the past decade+ my partner and I are still together, and I look back at 21 as a time when I most followed the social script expected of me and coasted on that for a while, until it all started to fall apart (in an ultimately good if devastating way) when I became a mom at 24.Ā  tl;dr: my 21 was tame and mellow and happy but i had no idea who i was or what i could be and now i do have a stronger sense of that at 32 and that feels better
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 bachelorā€™s 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 thatā€™s 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 ā€œwhy donā€™t 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 Iā€™d 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 weā€™re 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 itā€™s 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 youā€™ll be so proud of that person.
Jun 11, 2024

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florinegrassenhopper riotgrrrl brendanooooo slowdazzle buck_mcgraw and indianjones ā€” we did it. Not only did we successfully meet for drinks, but we also schemed the hostile takeover of this app from tyler tonight. In all seriousness ā€” weird that an app I downloaded in April would make genuinely want to drive back into Brooklyn during end of day traffic for a happy hour. Great app filled with great people.
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I feel like thereā€™s a special connectivity on this app that I havenā€™t felt in a long time, maybe since early 2010ā€™s tumblr. The fact that you canā€™t promote yourself like IG is wonderful. The fact that there isnā€™t mass video content like Tik Tok is great. Itā€™s not this monetized / paid sponsorship app. People are here because they want to be a part of something with nothing to gain besides friendship. Seeing the URL -> IRL meetups warms my heart so much (waiting for an NYC or Brooklyn meetup). Thanks for your participation on this niche little app. I smile reading all the recs and all the comments and all the asks. Hope weā€™ll all be here for a long time.
Jun 15, 2024
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I think a life rule for me is to surround myself with people who know more / are smarter / are cooler than me and just absorb their aura by listening / observing them. Itā€™s made me the incredibly smart / cool person you all know and love. I just never thought Iā€™d feel the same way about URL friends. Iā€™m constantly listening to the songs I see posted here, reading the articles, subbing to newsletters, and googling topics that get tossed onto the feed. Itā€™s nice to know you can become a more rounded person by just absorbing what your mutuals post on here. Iā€™m going to sit on my couch, have a cocktail and digest my lovely feed. Happy Sunday!
Sep 15, 2024