The 20something Spiral
My oldest brother (a talented fantasy writer) and I started a writing Instagram a while back. Because, yes, to be a writer in this day and age, you also need to be a content creator… a painful but enlightening realization.
It’s funny really, how in one second you can go from writing in secret on your laptop, keeping this hobby of yours on the downlow, to dragging your second-son-middle-child brother around on the floor of your basement because he “majored in numbers.” Then posting said video on social media for the masses.
We call it @20somethingwriters—and the name had a pretty simple origin. Being in your 20somethings in the 2020somethings is a very niche experience for most. One in which you’re about a million versions of yourself, just trying to navigate the throng of sleepless nights and exhausted days, finding some meaning in this confusing decade of life.
In this odd conglomerate of years, being happy seems to come with socially-accepted criteria. It becomes a matter of crafting a life that “makes sense”—dating “right” people, befriending “right” people, taking “right” jobs. When really, this mindset becomes a series of unrealistic expectations, destined to curate our own downfall when we don’t adhere to our own societally-imposed standards.
Social media amplifies this reality, because “Person A has travel photos all over her Instagram, and how could she possibly do all that when I’m barely making rent?” Or “Person B posted the cutest picture with her adorable, finance-bro-of-a-boyfriend at a Michelin Star restaurant, while I just went on a Tinder date with a guy who said his fulltime job is “the gym.” He also works at GameStop in his spare time, you know, to pay his mother rent while he lives in her basement at age thirty-six.” And “Oh my God! Did she just get engaged at the tip of Mont Blanc?! Look at that rock!”
Social media masks the truth of our twenties—nobody has things figured out. Everyone screws up. Half the time, the best stories are written when we we date wrong people or befriend idiots or take jobs that makes us live for the weekend. We blend versions of who we used to be with versions of who we want to be, finding some meaning in the mess along the way.
I enjoy writing the mess. The coming-of-age. The shitty date and the friends-to-lovers. The person you want to kill becoming the person you can’t help but love. The best friend who sets you straight and the tough love of the parent who is also doing life for the first time. The “right” decisions on the first try never make for a good story, they just make for an easy one.
Our 20somethings shouldn’t be easy, they should be memorable. And they’re steeped in the kind of stories that form the deepest fabric of the people we deserve to become.
Summer Rayne follows a 20something mess of a young woman, who strives to find meaning in the hardest parts of a life-changing summer. I’m excited for readers to meet her, and hopefully find a bit of themselves in her journey, which is anything but linear.
-Julia ♥
