Being 28

  Let me tell you why your mid to late 20's are confusing. There are no rules, but everything is marketed towards you. People older than you want to be your age, people younger than you want to be your age. American culture idolizes this time in life, but they don't define it. I have friends who are married with three kids and friends who live with their parents. Friends who hold jobs that require lots of responsibility and friends who play video games all day. Friends who dress in high quality, fashionable clothes and friends who shop at Target (I fall in this category...youth ministry doesn't lend itself to nice digs). Yet among all that diversity and chaos, people still think that this time of life is to be most desired. It leads those who are actually in their later 20's to be confused, really confused as to what is expected.

  On a given Sunday morning I will have a teenager tell me how "old" I am and turn around to an older adult tell me how "young" I am. I'm neither young nor old and for the first time in life, age is not primary criteria for who I'm going to be or who my friends will be.

  It's a strange life stage because, although being at the forefront of everyone's idealism, the idealism is a fraud. Reality of being in your 20's isn't late nights and friends and freedom, it's learning how to be an adult in real life. You're no longer playing "grown up" like you did in college or even just after. You're the real deal, but no one has ever outlined that for you. It's making mistakes and learning from them. It's realizing that if you don't get enough sleep, you are going to be a disaster the next day (remember when you could get three hours of sleep and never skip a beat...that was glorious). Heck, its realizing that you would rather go to bed at 9 than do anything else. It's your late 20's that you start to feel your limits, but its the time that culture says is when you are limitless.

  So being 28 isn't all it's cracked up to be and my rapidly approaching 29th birthday doesn't sound all that much better, but alas, I will enjoy this time. If for no other reason than b/c everyone else wants it and I feel that I need to due diligence to my 20's.