The Year that set the Tone for my Twenties

This year, I turned twenty, but if you asked me, I would still say I’m a teenage girl. I never felt like I was maturing until I looked back on this year, the first year of my twenties. Separating the year into its four quarters, I found accomplishments within each one, which is enough to prove to myself that I lived this year to the fullest. 2024 was a year that forever pivoted my life into a direction that I can’t wait to follow in 2025.

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Quarter One: I found my people 

I started this year with the most amount of love surrounding me that I’ve ever had. I lived in a house with ten girls and called them all my best friends. They made the weekdays feel like weekends and mundane moments special. There is still nobody in the world who can make me laugh as hard as those girls and I am forever grateful for my relationship with each one of them. 

Quarter Two: I fell in love 

In late spring, I finally surrendered to the expectations of what it is to be a twenty-year-old girl in college, and I was just me. I spent more time writing and celebrated the launch of magazines and chapbooks I worked on as well as the publication of my very own creative nonfiction piece, Girlhood. While caught up in my own self-love, I found some in the late nights twirled around in my best dresses and the first glistening of summer sun on our skin. I fell in love, and it felt like a crush I would have at ten years old, and it still does. 

Quarter Three: I lived in the moment 

So, the summer was spent writing songs and speeding down the highway in between going to concerts, baseball games, and dinner dates. I was never home this summer, too busy living my life for what felt like the very first time and somehow still working full-time. I saved up my money and spent it on moments I’ll always have to play in the back of my mind. I was nervous about what was going to happen in the fall, long-distance and leaving the country for the first time in my life. But I left for my study abroad in mid-August and everything was fine.  

Quarter Four: I traveled the world 

I was living my perfect Italian summer and had some of my best friends along my side. We snorkeled in Sardinia, stood on tables at Oktoberfest, and danced in Barcelona. I had the absolute time of my life. I went to pubs in Scotland, got kissed under the Eiffel Tower’s sparkle, and rode on the top of a double-decker bus. Along with the crazy weekend trips, I was a writing intern for an Italian communication agency that highlights local tourism. With eleven published articles from this semester and a million memories, I finally have stories to tell my kids one day.  

Quarter Five (New Year): I did it, now it’s time to do it 

Amid all the fun I had this year, all my hard work paid off. One of my greatest accomplishments was being elected the Panhellenic President. I am the incoming president of the council that oversees the sororities at my university. It’ll be hard work in between my six Writing/English classes, campus job, and literary magazine position, but I already know it’ll be the most rewarding. I will be starting 2025 off strong, so strong that the girl who entered 2024 wouldn’t have been able to imagine any of this being part of her reality now.  

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Everything I did this year was exactly what I imagined my twenties to look like: unconditional friendships, sweet love, carefree fun, travel, and success. If every year could be described as beautifully as this one was, I would never have regrets again. I don’t typically have New Year’s resolutions, but more mantras to guide me through the year. I guess this year mine would be to pour energy into each of those categories and to remember that I am in the most unforgettable decade of my life.  

-Emma Claire