Turning 30 has had me more than a little introspective. I've started several journal entries, notes and blogs as I think about my 20s, as I celebrate them closing out. I enjoyed my 20s more than my teenage years. But truthfully, that's not saying very much. Even though I have tried to embrace my growing up, to confront the wounds it left me, and to celebrate the peculiar strength it imbued me with, I breathe a sigh of relief with every year I put between myself and those dark years. I would feel guilty for that if it wasn't such a stark, unchangeable truth. I would apologize if it felt like something I had agency over. But I feel that relief like a breath inhaled in the quiet of a yet undisturbed morning. 

I went through my 20s hoping for answers, for permission, and for validation. I found only the crumbs of those things and I had to learn to make those crumbs enough or go without. 

Answers. I thought I would be taught by some outside force what I was meant to do with this life, what I was good at, and what I wanted. This last decade has been a slow peeling back of layers as I discover that no one, not even God is going to answer those questions. That I have to answer those questions as honestly as I can. That I have to mine the answers from deep inside of myself. I may receive help or encouragement from any number of sources, but I will never receive a meaningful answer from an outside source. 

Permission. I wanted to be interesting. I wanted to make things. I wanted to matter. I wanted to have a career or hobbies that I was deeply passionate about and that made my soul hum with purpose. And I was waiting for permission. It wasn't until I was first working in a job that could have been my dream job had the people not been so miserable and then fired from that job  (and relieved to be fired)...only then did it occur to me that permission wasn't something I was ever going to get. In fact, the whole idea of permission was a little bit of a farce. There are just people who do things and people who don't. There are people who follow their gut, plans, and/or heart and people who wait for someone to tell them what to do. And what happens when what you're told is "no"? What if, over and over again, no one gives you permission to be yourself?

Validation. Again, I wanted to be interesting, to make things, and to contribute in a meaningful way. But 2 out of 3 of those things are highly subjective. And I was waiting for an outside source to accept my contribution. I wasted a decade on judges who don't exist. I wasted a decade waiting for "someone" (anyone) to recognize my skills and contributions as unique and meaningful. And that waiting made the rejection in my career heavier than it would have been if I had chosen more carefully who got to have input on my worth. 

I mourn the way I wasted so much of this decade appealing to people and things that were not qualified to give answers, permission, or validation. But I celebrate with hope the idea of having learned better. And I know that many people in my life will look at who I was in my early 20s and miss her. My insecurity, my eagerness to mold myself into whoever and whatever someone needs me to be, my bone deep need to be useful. And that knowledge gives a small sense of dread to the next decade because I know that I have left those things behind. I do not need everyone to like me anymore. I don't need to be understood. And I'm not so desperate for validation. I've learned how to make do with the questions and answers that I have. And I know myself so much better than I ever used to, my limits, my unkindness, my generosity, and my selfishness. I take comfort from knowing that while I may be less likeable to the passing stranger (or even to family members), I am more at home in my skin than I have ever been. And when people don't understand me, it's their job to ask questions instead of always and only my job to make myself understood.