I’m excited to bring you a new series on the blog, chatting all about the turbulent twenties! I’ll be featuring a few of these blogs focused on the turbulent twenties, right up until I turn the big 3-0 at the end of this year. This blog post will be primarily focused on the early twenties, which for me meant a lot of education, travel, and moving around. Read on for more on the turbulent twenties!

Welcome to the turbulent twenties, a mini blog series. When kids are growing up, the “terrible two’s” are often referenced as they age. Well, I think there’s another equally transformative time in our lives, which I like to call the turbulent twenties. I cannot think of another time in life when you go through so many significant changes in such a condensed time period. There’s always opinions of how your twenties “should” go, but regardless of which life stages you’re moving through, they sure are turbulent. So grab a drink, pull up a seat, and let’s dive in!

Education

When I turned 20 and began this very turbulent decade, I was smack-dab in the middle of my undergraduate degree. Though each person has a different journey with education, many people are doing some form of additional education in their early twenties. Education can have a transformative experience for those who choose to be open to expanding their mindset. It certainly was for me. I was the first person in my family to attend university, which was a very big deal. Though this opportunity was very exciting, I wasn’t necessarily prepared for everything that would come my way in university. The many changes and bumps along the way were definitely turbulent.

During my second year of university, I went on an academic exchange for a semester, which was awesome but definitely shook things up in terms of stability. I changed campuses in the middle of my degree – which was challenging, but doable. I changed my area of study multiple times, too. All of these big changes certainly contributed to turbulence. Add all of these academic contexts on top to everything else you’re dealing with as a 20-22 year old, and it’s a lot. If you’re like me and choose to study right after you graduate from high school, then you’ll be in school from approximately 18-22. By the end of university, I felt like a completely different person.

Choosing to study during this transformative time in your life brings its own set of turbulent circumstances. Having education to expand your mindset can contribute to a feeling of everything changing even more – sometimes even faster than you can keep up. Despite the rapid changes spurred on by education, I am very grateful for the opportunity to study in my twenties. I believe education is life-changing, and having it take place during a time of big changes in your early twenties really fuels growth for the future. Recognizing both the turbulence and transformation during this time is really important, as it can be a defining feature of your twenties.

Travel

Throughout my degree, I was also very fortunate to do a lot of exploring and travelling. My academic exchange abroad actually took place when I was 19, and I went to England for a semester. It was a transformative experience and really stoked my love of travel. The following year, when I was 20, I went abroad again to explore Europe on my own. When I was 22, I had a big grad trip abroad as well, in southeast Asia and Australia. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to travel so much in my early twenties. Since beginning my career after graduating, I’ve been fortunate to travel throughout North America for work.

However, when you are in such a turbulent decade as your twenties, I feel there’s a big debate about travel. There are often questions about if you “should” be travelling, or if you “should” be focusing on something else. Should you be in school or working on your career? Do you even have the money to travel? If you do, should you be saving your money for something else? Questions abound on and on…. With so many conflicting priorities, it can be a big challenge to choose what to prioritize in this decade.

Some people do choose to prioritize travel, and I applaud those who have the money and the time to do so. I am very grateful that I had the chance to do so much in my early twenties, and that my career allows for some travel as well. With that said, the jumping around from here to there can take a toll and create its own feelings of turbulence. Depending on your frequency and duration of travel, it may generate instability. And with that, we come to housing.

Housing and Making a Home

Let’s talk about housing. Living at home, moving out, renting, buying – there are so many different forms housing can take in your twenties. For most, their twenties might be the first time that you live away from home. Depending on your family situation, this could be seen as a blessing or a curse. For me personally, it was somewhere in the middle. Regardless of the situation, it’s still a struggle and a big transition to leave your family home.

In my early twenties, since I was still in university, I was navigating the housing market as a student. It can be rough to live with roommates sometimes. The biggest challenge for me, though, was constantly moving. Throughout my degree, which spanned 5 years, I lived in 8 different houses!! And unfortunately for me, that trajectory continued after I graduated. By the time I reached 28, I had lived in almost 20 different places since I was 18. 🤯 That is a ton of moving over a ten-year period!!

This constant on-the-go feeling and difficulty in making a home was something I had not expected when I entered my twenties. For me, the constant movement strongly contributed to the feeling of turbulence in my twenties. There was a time where I was moving every year or less. That level of rapid movement hardly gives you time to get settled. When you are always on the go, it can be very challenging to create a sense of stability. Having a turbulent home is one aspect that can create a turbulent sense of identity as well.

At some point, you inevitably reach the question of renting or buying a home. By the time I hit my late twenties, I knew a handful of people that owned a place, but the majority of my friends were renting – with little expectations of ever being able to afford purchasing their own home. If you can’t buy, the question then becomes how you can really afford to rent, especially in places where rental costs are sky-rocketing. Is it better to suck it up and live with roommates for awhile to attempt to be able to save and eventually buy? What if you want your own place but can’t afford to buy, then can you afford your own place to rent? What’s really worth it and what’s the best choice?

All of these questions and decisions can feel very overwhelming. In your twenties, any choice works. Yet, even the indecisiveness can contribute to a feeling of being unsettled. These aspects are something I am still navigating in my late twenties. Despite the chaos that I often felt moving around so often, I am still grateful I had the opportunity to explore living in different cities throughout the country and the world. There are many ways to create a sense of home, and I encourage you to lean into whichever home you find yourself in.

Now What?

Having the convergence of education, travel, and a lot of moving for different housing situations contributed to making my twenties quite turbulent. This was especially true in my early twenties when I was finishing my undergraduate degree, beginning to enter the workforce, and living in different cities. Though it was very turbulent at the time, I am grateful that it has begun to settle down now. I believe it is very important to recognize just how turbulent this phase of your twenties can be. If you’re in the thick of it right now, you’re not alone!!

In our next segment, we’ll dive into careers and money – all of the juicy stuff that really starts to hit towards your mid-twenties. Stay tuned for next time! And enjoy the photos below of myself in my early twenties 😊