What I’m Leaving Behind in My Twenties

Well, today’s the day. I made it to thirty, an age I never imagined being as a kid. Mind you, I imagined being twenty-something and hot, and seventy-something and adorable, but thirty is such a weird in-between age. Too old to be cute in a childlike way, yet too young to be cute in a little old lady way. Thirty isn’t exactly an age you fantasize about being. When you think thirty, you think adult responsibilities and bills and oh God my biological clock is ticking and I still don’t have kids yet and holy shit is that a gray hair?!

…I say as if I’m not going to do something like *this* when I go gray.

But I’m kind of excited to turn thirty, to be honest. I’ve made my peace with getting older (mostly) and realized there are a lot of aspects of being young I’m ready to leave behind. Like I’ve said before, your twenties are kind of your free trial run of adulthood, your first playthrough on easy mode, where people still give you plenty of grace if you eff it up at first. But at thirty, the training wheels come off. You become a full-fledged person, and while that can be scary, it comes with some perks.

Here’s what I’m ready to leave in my twenties.

1. Irresponsibility

My twenties were marked by frivolous spending. Like, I impulse-bought a boat (which my first boyfriend hilariously predicted I would do someday). And I had to impulse-leave that boat by a dumpster with a “free – take me!” sign taped to it when we moved away from the lake. I rode that boat one magical time with my girlfriend when she came to visit—and never, ever again. That one boat ride basically costed me $500.

There were plenty of other things I impulse bought because it looked so cool in the Instagram advertisement. Like the two exercise machines I barely touched before realizing I can’t work out unless I’m at a gym with no distractions. If there is a couch available to nap on, lizard brain always picks couch. And don’t even get me started on clothes and makeup.

Cody, my financial advisor, gave me a stern talking to earlier. See, when we first starting working with him, he asked me and my wife our “whys” — why do we want to get out of debt and build our savings? My reason was simple. I wanted to start a family someday.

Of course, Cody took one look at my spending habits recently and said something that shook me.

“Do you actually want to start a family? Because you’re spending like your don’t actually want to.”

And it hit me. I haven’t been spending with the future in mind. Every time I buy some bullshit, I’m taking away from my future daughter’s college fund. Every Tim Horton’s donut I buy could have gone toward a new dance uniform for her instead. Or I could have used the money to help start my private music therapy practice, or buy a cute home on a big plot of land. I’m not a huge fan of my old pastor’s theology, but I will admit he had some good adages I still abide by to this day. One thing he’d always say was “What you spend your money on shows what you really care about.” And I think there’s a lot of truth to that. I don’t spend like I love my future daughter. I spend like I love material things more than her.

So I think this kind of frivolous spending is best left in my twenties.

2. Sloppiness

I have to admit, I never saw the point of making my bed. Like, you’re just going to get it all messed up again the next time you sleep, right? And still, nothing feels better than pulling down the sheets of a freshly made bed in preparation for a long night of slumber.

Imagine if we had the attitude I had about making my bed about everything. What if I never brushed my teeth because they’re just going to get gross again next time I eat something? My teeth would end up rotting out of my face! Brushing your teeth is an act of self-care, and so is keeping house.

A book I read recently, How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis, invited the reader to reframe daily chores as self-care tasks, rather than a duty that needs to be fulfilled for the sake of being fulfilled. We do these things because we deserve to have a clean, inviting home. We owe it to ourselves.

I recently got into the habit of putting away clothes after I launder them. It sounds like such a little thing to be proud of, but I am. I love walking into my bedroom and being able to make it to my bed without tripping over a pile of leggings. I love how it looks, being able to see the floor again. I feel at home in my home. What a freakin’ concept.

Sometimes, the change is as easy as making sure you have the right tools to clean with. I stocked up on some all-natural cleaners that smell nice and come in pretty bottles, and weirdly enough, that makes me want to do more around the house. It’s all about tricking lizard brain into doing what I want it to do, and turns out lizard brain likes shiny things that smell good.

This guy has an unsettling amount of influence over me.

In your twenties, everyone sucks, so you don’t go to other people’s houses expecting things to be perfectly in place and meticulously cleaned. But once you turn thirty, there’s this expectation that you’ll stop being a goblin and start keeping your home like a person. When I was younger, I’d probably say “Well, expectations are stupid anyways” and go back to living in squalor. But cleaning really is an act of self-care. It’s deciding you’re worthy of having a clean, habitable environment that reflects who you are, and gifting that to yourself.

3. Unhealthy Habits

I wish I remembered most of my twenties, but I spent a good deal of it drunk. Of course.

I didn’t have a drink until I was twenty, and I barely drank until I was legal, but after my 21st birthday, all hell broke loose. With the exception of the time I was briefly married to a very conservative, very Christian guy who’d never touched alcohol in his life, I spent the majority of my twenties with a drink in hand. Life was just hopping from one excuse to get trashed to the next.

I wasted a lot of time being wasted. I thought being intoxicated helped me be more creative, but it actually stifled me. I wasn’t writing or doing much of anything productive while drinking. I’d go to shows my own band was playing and get blackout drunk, looking like a fool at a time when I should have maintained a sense of professionalism.

As of writing, I’ve been sober about a year. Wild, I know. See, I’ve found healthier alternatives to alcohol to fill the hole in my heart. Like, did you know there are companies that make nonalcoholic beer? It tastes exactly the same! And I can be a snob about it — “Oh, just give me the Heineken 0.0”

“I try not to poison my body with that alcoholic shit, thanks.”

Snobbery is a kind of underrated motivator, and one of the reasons behind another life change I want to take into the next phase of my existence. I’ve started working out every weekday morning, no exceptions. This is partially because I have to take my wife to her gym job at the buttcrack of dawn, but it’s a good excuse to get moving. I love being one of those motivational assholes who are like “Ah yes, I get up at 5 am every day to do 45 minutes of cardio before work. It keeps me grounded.”

I’ll admit there are some areas of my life I have yet to earn bragging rights for. Like, my eating habits are still abysmal. But that’s the thing about progress. If you don’t have something you’re constantly working toward, you might as well be on your deathbed. Constantly aiming toward new highs is what keeps you young. And as hard as it is to say goodbye to young adulthood, I know it’s not the end of the journey. I have a good 30 more years at least — and that’s a conservative estimate. If I have my way, I’ll be around twice as long as that.

But even if I do make it to 90, as long as I still have dreams and ambitions and goals, I’ll never truly be “grown up.”

Pieces of Myself: Learning to Love Past-Jess

Full disclosure: I started using the good ol’ Mary Joanna to help me sleep at night. Yeah yeah, I know that technically means I’m not sober by the broadest definition of the term, despite being alcohol-free for about a year new (hell yeah). But I use it medicinally to help with my constant waking up in the middle of the night, and honestly, it does help me get a more restful sleep

Sometimes after I smoke, I don’t immediately fall asleep, and when that happens, I either get horny, paranoid, or philosophical. It’s kind of a crapshoot every time which of my high personalities shows up. It’s usually the one I don’t want at the time, which means using it as an aphrodisiac is a gamble.

“Jess, this is *not* the time to ramble about how we’re living in a simulation.”

Last night, though, I had a strange experience. My wife was giving me a pep talk regarding my mental health, which has been pretty bad as of late. Nothing concerning, just the usual “What if life is meaningless and everything I do will eventually be forgotten?” Which is pretty heavy stuff to think about literally every second of the day, and I’ve been in this mindset for most of my life. Yay, anxiety!

But, in my high, pseudo-intellectual stupor, something my wife said really itched a part of me I didn’t know I needed to reach — the past Jesses (is that the proper plural of Jess?).

I haven’t been nice to past me. Not any of them. I tend to think of my past selves as different people, instead of a cohesive part of who I became. I look at Child Jess through my adult eyes and judge her unfairly for being, well, an outcast. A pariah. The weird autistic little girl who stims by spinning around in the back of the classroom and making bird sounds. I get mad at my younger self for having the nerve to not fit in and be popular. And as my wife said, that little girl is a part of me still, and every time I resent my childhood eccentricities, I bully her the same way I was bullied by other people.

Then I think of College Jess. The me who was skinny and outgoing and optimistic and popular and excelled at school despite barely trying. Although she’s a part of me as well, I resent her for being all the things I wish I was now. I’m jealous of a past version of me! It makes no sense when I really think about it — at that time, my mental illnesses were worse than they’d ever been before, and I’d sooner saw off my own pinky toe with a nail file before I’d willingly deal with my OCD at its worst again. But I only see this rose-tinted version of the past, with this girl who is infuriatingly everything I want to be. Everything I was.

The thing is, these aren’t two different people. They’re all me, and they’ve taken me to where I am now. And honestly, where I am now isn’t that bad. I have a wife and a girlfriend I love dearly (that poly life, I’m tellin’ ya). I’m back in school for music therapy, and I’m closer than ever to getting this degree. I even won a scholarship for it! I’m about to be debt-free, and I’m working on getting back in shape. And despite my depression being ever-present, my mental health has never been better. Everything is falling into place for once, and I owe it all to my past selves for bringing me to this place. I started thinking of these past selves as an Inside Out-type of inner council that influences my day to day decisions and emotions.

It’s going to be a process, but I’ve started making peace with my past. I want to continue to honor and integrate these past versions of Jess into myself as a whole. Writing this out was my first step in healing these broken pieces of me. If your brain works at all like mine, I hope this little blog post helps you, too.

Get Out of That Box!

I feel bad for leaving everyone on a sad note with my last post, so this one is more optimistic, I swear!

My wife and I stopped drinking earlier this year. Officially, for real this time. We haven’t had as much as a drop in the last several months. And frankly, I’m pretty okay with that. Sure, there’s some FOMO when my friends are sipping on a nice craft beer or mixed drink, but for the most part, I don’t miss it. I’ve lost weight, I don’t have no-reason hives nearly as often, and I’m not constantly in a daze from being drunk or hungover almost every day.

We were paying money to have a bad time.

Something peculiar happened when we stopped drinking though. We found ourselves unable to relate to a lot of our friends who did drink a lot or rely on drugs to have fun. Suddenly, sobriety was lonely as hell. I call these growing pains, though. As in, we’re finally growing up, but the people around us are stagnating. It’s a good problem, although it doesn’t feel good in the moment.

My old church and pastor are problematic for a lot of reasons, and if you’ve snooped long enough through my blog, you’d know why. But my former pastor did have a lot of wisdom I still love by to this day. One of his sayings was “show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.” As 90s sitcom “special episode” as it is to admit, the people you surround yourself with influence you more than you think.

Think of it this way. If someone’s standing on a table for some ungodly reason, it would be hard for them to pull another person up onto the table with them. It would be much easier for someone on the ground to pull the person on the table down to their level. It’s best to climb onto the table alone. That doesn’t mean you can’t have any friends when you’re working on yourself, though. Maybe people will see that what you’re doing is weird and different and better, and they might even climb onto a table as well.

The point is, the road to getting better is lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. Instead of hanging out at bars and partying your life away, meet new people at gyms or church. Learn a new hobby and join a local group for it. Even online groups like r/decidingtobebetter on Reddit can be helpful. It sucks distancing yourself from old friends, but holding onto habits that hurt you in order to still relate to them is not worth it. You can’t keep breaking your own bones to fit into someone else’s box.

Get out of that box!

A Letter

Note: ENORMOUS content warning for this one. If sexual assault is a trigger for you, you can skip this one. Take care of yourself.

It started with an Adderall-fueled spring cleaning of my laptop’s documents, some dating back to when I’d bought it several years back. There in the word documents, between old college assignments and a smattering of first chapters of stories I’ll never finish, was a file simply titled “A Letter.” Opening it made my blood freeze in my veins as I remembered the whens and whys of the letter’s existence.

I never intended the letter to be read by its addressee, frankly because I wished to never see him again. It was a catharsis, a pouring out of emotions I thought I’d come to terms with. In retrospect, it affected me more than I thought. Following the incident that sparked the writing of this letter, I found myself seeking comfort in things like alcohol. I gained more weight than I ever had. My depression and anxiety overtook me to a point where my grades suffered and I needed to drop out of school — and I’d seldom gotten anything lower than an A- before.

I never intended the letter to be read by its addressee — or anyone else — but it’s been two years almost to the day since it happened. And I’m ready to talk about it. This is the letter, exactly as I wrote it the day I was raped.

It was my first time traveling alone. No family, no friend, no significant other. Maybe I was asking for it. I’ve lived enough life to not be naive about these sorts of things, but in general, I’d like to think most people are good. The handsome, friendly man you’re having lively conversation with over some craft beer won’t hurt you, right? Wrong. So wrong. So fucking wrong.

It was my last night in Ohio. The people I were staying with were all asleep. I was lonely. The extrovert in me wanted to meet people, to make memories, not just sit on my laptop in the dark. So I went to the bar on the top floor. The view was spectacular. I had one, two, several drinks. I’m no stranger to alcohol. I don’t get black-out drunk easily. I still remember all of my time up in the bar, chatting with you.

But I don’t remember how I got to your room. The rest of the night comes to me like a movie montage. I was sitting on the ledge of the window, looking out over the Cincinnati lights. Your friend was rolling a joint. Next scene. I can’t make out much, but you were on top of me. Next scene. I wake up, somehow in my hotel room. My friends were petrified I got hurt somehow. As the memories flood back to me, I realize I had been. I check my phone. You’ve messaged me. “I hope you never forget our night together.” I can barely remember it, but no, I won’t forget.

My friends leave for the music therapy conference. I need to head out to play a gig in my hometown. Wanting to take a hot shower and scrub off the uncomfortable feeling on my body, I lift my hideous rainbow grandma sweater over my head. There’s no bra. I left my bra in your room. I see I have another message. You want to see me before I leave. I don’t want to see you, but I want my bra back. So I give you the room number — stupidly — and ask you to bring it to me.

Oh, but you love me. You love how I heal people with music. You want a future with me. You’d do anything for me. You stand in the doorway, blocking me with your body. I tell you I need to leave, I need to go home. I’m cornered in the bathroom. You want to show me how much I mean to you. Your hands meet my high-waisted jeans — who the fuck gets raped in an ugly sweater and mom jeans? You begin to pull them down. I protest and pull them back up. You say fine, okay. Just one kiss. One kiss and you’ll leave me alone. Right? Wrong again.

I kiss you, timidly. You pull me in. I smell you. You lift me up over your shoulder like a ragdoll. You put me on the bed. I’m scared. I tell you I don’t want this. I say no. I said no. You should have left me alone. But you didn’t. You’re between my legs. You take off my pants. Your mouth is where it shouldn’t be. I’m shaking, struggling to breathe. I’m so dehydrated I can’t even cry. I feel sick. And then you take your dick out. You fuck me as I tell you to stop. I don’t want this. Frustrated with my whining, you pull out after a minute or two. And eventually, you leave. Finally.

But you’re still with me. I’m sore. There’s blood. I’m shaking. You keep messaging me, telling me you’re thinking of me. You call me. I don’t answer. I can’t answer. All I want is to get the hell out of Ohio. I’ve never sped so fast on the highway, crying as I tell my two closest friends what happened and hoping the sweet, sweet voice of Freddie Mercury will drown out the voices telling me this is all my fault.

But it’s not. I remind myself. You picked me up. You pinned me down. Even if — playing devil’s advocate — that previous night was my fault, for getting drunk and letting myself be taken advantage of, what you did the next morning was textbook rape. The last thing I did before I blocked you on Facebook was go through your photos. You have a daughter. How the fuck are you going to justify what you did when you have a little girl of your own? Would you want a man to do to her what you did to me? I sure as hell hope not.

I’m conflicted. Part of me wants to believe you’re good, that this was all just a big misunderstanding. That somehow I tempted fate by drinking in a strange place with strange people. That I tempted you with my ugly sweater and mom jeans. Maybe no one ever taught you about the concept of consent. And then I think about how, in less than 48 hours, you have completely destroyed my trust in people. I’m scared. I don’t know if the next guy I hang out with is going to take advantage of me. How many of the men I talk to every day or the men I admire have done what you did? It seems like every woman I’ve gotten close enough to to talk about this subject has some kind of story. And you happen to be mine.

And I hope I never, ever meet you again.

This is probably the most difficult, personal thing I’ve ever shared on here, but stories like these, like mine, need to be told. Chances are, it’s happened to someone you love. Maybe it’s happened to you. And I’m sharing this for the same reason I’ve shared a lot of my deepest struggles in my writing — because someone out there needs to know they’re not alone in this. To all the survivors out there reading this, you are strong and valuable and loved, and what someone else did to you does not define you. Take care of yourselves and be good to one another.

There is help if you need it. You can reach the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE or online at online.rainn.org