Why Your 20s Might be Surprisingly Lonely

Your 20s. "The best time of your life." Well, it can be. The season between age 20 and 30 is a rich one. A season packed with new experiences and an unprecedented amount of freedom compared to your pre-20s life. However, it is also season marked by a ridiculous amount of change, an abnormal amount of moving and temporary living spaces, increased responsibility, and bittersweet transitions within friendships as friends move away, enter new seasons of life, and actually have things do to besides just hang out (gotta love college)! *Big sigh.* Sometimes I've asked friends in their 30s and 40s, "Does life ever kind of level out and settle down a little? There is SO much that happens in your 20s." Most have reassured me that, yes, in many senses, life does settle a little in that there are probably not so many huge changes in such a short time span. In one decade people are moving out, getting jobs, chasing dreams, getting engaged, getting married, having babies, buying houses, moving away. Some at 21, some at 29, and lots in between. Our 20s seem so carefree when we're dreaming about them as wide-eyed, idealistic high school graduates. But we learn VERY quickly that within those ten years we lay some massively foundational building blocks that will impact the rest of our lives. I've had this reoccuring thought that sometimes, while embracing all the rich joys that come along with our 20s, we just need to call it what it is: crazy, difficult, and sometimes super lonely. Let me explain. 

On Instagram and Facebook, we know how to make life look GOOD in this decade of life. Fun spontaneous trips, hanging out with friends for days, none of us have really started "aging" so we make sure to document every lovely moment of our years in our "prime" (if that's even a thing). But there are so many moments, so many milestones, that would be less pleasant to post on a photo reel. The strangeness of moving out of your parents' house, then moving back in again at some point, then finally out again, this time maybe forever. Trying to find roommates and apartments and learning that not everyone lives like you and that bills are expensive and actually need to be paid. The feelings of being "left behind" when a best friend gets married and you're still single. The dreams of finding "the one." The devastation of a break up. The tension of being married and trying to cultivate friendships with other married couples while still trying to invest in all your other friendships. 

So often as I talk to young adults in my ministry and life - and reflect back on the past few years of my own life - a common struggle woven through many peoples' stories is the struggle of change and transition in friendships. Sometimes it just happens, for whatever reason, with almost no warning or acknowledgment. Distance. Loss of closeness. Months later you find yourself wondering why something is "off" and how it happened. But it DOES happen. Friends move away. We move away. Friends make new friends and we get left out, or we make new friends and leave others out. A friend gets married or gets a new job. Or we get married or enter a new seasons full of new relationships. There is a lot of celebrating the joys in the lives of others even if it stings because you wish your life was that great. You don't want to rob their joy by letting them see you sad. Conversely, other times it can feel like you have to become an expert in "joy-management" as you rejoice over something in your life that you know a friend is desperately longing for and praying for in their own. You feel guilty being excited around them. Friendships go both ways. I've found that sometimes it is better, in the words of Shauna Niequist, simply to "say something." Acknowledge that something has affected the way you do life together as friends. Rather than make it anyone's fault, make room for a conversation about how life and transition in our 20s is crazy and tricky for all of us. Build a bridge, not a wall. 

Also, is there any other decade where people can be in SO many different seasons in one 10-year span of life?! I mean, really. College, part-time jobs, internships, grad school, single, engaged, married, working full time, having babies, renting apartments, living with parents, buying houses, travelling the world. Sidenote: in the past 8 years of my life, I have moved at least 13 times! Hello. Unnatural. But the reality for so many of us.

No longer are we simply friends with people because they are in the same grade as us. When I was in fifth grade, I was typically friends with fifth graders. Not so in your 20s. All of a sudden, friendships revolve largely around "season of life." In college, at least if you live on campus at a Christian college like I did, community is kind of handed to you on a shiny silver platter. Dorm life is amazing. Hanging out all day, every day, living together, sharing nearly all waking moments with people you love seems almost too good to be true. Because it kind of is. When I moved off campus for the first time and then graduated two years later, I realized that true community - in "normal life" - takes a heck of a lot of work and effort. My best friend and I roomed together our freshmen and sophomore year at Corban, and once we stopped living together we lamented about how we actually had to text each other or plan coffee dates to hang out. It sounds silly but at the time it was a big adjustment! Investing in our friendship was easy when we shared a room for two years, but now it takes a different kind of investment. 

It's not that community isn't possible as you get older, it REALLY, TRULY is! It just won't happen on accident. Sometimes the last thing I want to do on a Monday night is go to our community group, if I'm tired or stressed or had a hard day (that's a true life confession, because we're the leaders of the group). But every single time I show up on Monday nights, I leave with the assurance that that was absolutely the best place for me to spend those few hours. Especially if I arrived feeling tired, especially if I arrived feeling burdened or lonely. 

I've noticed in my own life and in the lives of those around me that everyone in their 20s is facing a unique set of challenges. Asking hard questions. Who are my people? What do I really want to do with my life? What does God want me to do with my life? How am I going to make this all work? How can I pursue my dreams AND go to school? How will I pay for it all? How do I cultivate my friendships with those who are in a different season of life than me? For me, it is easy to slip into a lonely mindset. A mindset that is dangerous and untrue but that goes something like this in my head... that maybe I don't really fit with anyone in any of the seasons. I'm not in college so I don't quite fit with all the cool college people anymore... but I'm married so I'm in a different spot than my single friends and maybe they think I'm so busy being "married" so they don't ask me to hang out ... but I don't hang out a ton with married people because I minister to a lot of single people ... but I don't have babies so I'm in a different spot than my friends with babies. 

Michael laughs at/ with me sometimes because, if I hear of an event or a gathering that was planned but that I wasn't invited to, I'll get sad and tell him how I'm feeling. So often in his sweet way he'll say, "Well I'm sure we could show up anyway, do you want to go?" And I'll respond, "Of course not, I'm too tired! I just wanted to be invited!" Is that just a me thing? Or a girl thing? I know, I can be ridiculous sometimes. But I think maybe at least one other person can relate. I hope. As I've worked through some of my own feelings of isolation and loneliness, I've chosen to believe that I'm not the only one. No matter what season we're in, maybe we've all bought into the lie a little bit that no one is going through what we're going through. The lie that no one understands where we're at. Perhaps understanding that reality in our own lives and allowing it to help us see others with compassion, rather than envy, is exactly what we need. 

The feelings of loneliness that we all wrestle with at times can either build walls between us and others or build bridges. Let's choose bridges. Let's press in and have conversations and invite each other to be honest. Instead of being discouraged and resentful about all of the people who aren't asking us to hang out, let's be the ones who decide to reach out. Even if its awkward. Even if we wish someone else would initiate. All of us are hungry for true, meaningful relationships. But it won't happen on accident. We won't wake up when we're 30 and think, "How in the world did my friendships get so deep and meaningful?" It will take work. It will require transparency. It will require humility. 

Let's not settle for doing this decade alone. We need each other, and I think others need us. 

"And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." 
Hebrews 10:24-25