Being 20 is Weird

There’s something so unnatural about being in your early 20s. About becoming an adult. 

I’m not married, with children, building my own family. 

Yet, I’m not living at home, under my mother and father’s care, direction, and schedule. 

This is not a misogynistic statement saying women need men or women must have children to have purpose. I’m all for women being independent (well, I think we all are dependent on people…woman or man…but that’s beside the point). 

This is me, a newly twenty year old, sitting in a coffee shop, thinking back to moments with my family growing up, and thinking about how much I miss my Mama, and realizing…I don’t live with my family anymore. 

Thinking about the fact that I haven’t had my family by my side (physically) for two consecutive months now. I’ve done this before…gone months at a time without them. After all, I am a junior in college now. This is my fifth semester living away from home. 

But…it is SO strange. I mean..I have a family–three younger sisters and a mom and dad. And my whole life– us living together–is what defined us being a family. 

I mean there is more than that…but for seventeen years of my life I lived with my family…SEVENTEEN years.

 And now–I don’t. 

They live 7 hours away from me. We talk and text. We visit each other. We live together for short periods of time. We are close and I love them very much…but how utterly unnatural it is, to go from living with people for seventeen years, to realizing you will probably not all live under the same roof, in the same way again. 

You are still family, but the whole living together thing is different. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am no stranger to found family. 

I have many “aunts” and “uncles” who are not blood related at all. 

But if anything, that has made moving away from my family even more strange. Family was found in those we did everyday life with. Our community and church family that loved, cried, and struggled together. 

Now I am in a different state, with friends and community that I have been very blessed with over the last few years. But no shoulder of my mom to cry on. My Dad isn’t physically here to hold me when I am struggling. I don’t have my sisters to have tickle wars with or sing karaoke into inappropriate hours of the night with. 

I am building a life and a community here. Getting plugged into a church. And I see God working in that. But now, as I try to dig deeper roots, I am realizing that I have existed within the same church family my whole life. My biological family is very plugged into ministry and relationships at my home church in Redding, CA. Meeting people at church up here, getting connected, without my family, is entirely unknown territory. 

Up until a little over two years ago, all I knew was how my family was. All I ever knew was living at home. The church I was in. The schools around me. 

Other kids in high school desperately wanted to get away from Redding. From the heat and smoke. From their families. From the politics they didn’t agree with, and the communities they felt confined in. 

I didn’t. 

I knew I needed to leave, to face independence, not because I wanted to get away from my family and my hometown, but because I felt loved and secure in my family. Because I knew that in this stretching, God would meet me. 

But, man, is it weird. 

Some seasons it comes more naturally. We fall into rhythms and it feels good. 

Other times, I find myself wondering how I got here…attempting to learn how to be an adult. Living

without my family.

I miss walks with my mentor around the block, and snuggles with my dogs. 

I miss drives with my mom and going to the movies with my dad. 

I miss family dinners, and the feeling of warmth and family on a rainy day. 

I’m sitting in Chapters Books and Coffee as I write this.  It’s rainy out.  But it makes the inside all the more full of life, warmth and cozy lights. 

That’s how home is to me. Lights on in the house. Warmth and cocoa. Ladling soup my Mom has made into bowls to eat around the table alongside some of my dad’s homemade Papa Bread. Jazz music

playing on the tv while we wash up and feed the dogs and set the table. 

My house and family are far from perfect. 

My childhood was full of messy moments, and an even messier kitchen. 

But today’s rain is making me think of those warm soup around the dinner table moments. Where my dad showed us worldview videos and my sisters asked questions of the day. 

These moments are precious. 

My family is precious. 

And they are still my family. 

But golly, is it weird to navigate living on your own, without them. 

Luckily, I have Jesus with me. And I have time to continue to learn and figure it out. 

I’ve been blessed with roommates who care really well for each other. I am getting plugged into a church that I can call family. 

I am meeting mentor-like women who I can talk to and ask for prayer. 

All of these blessings have been entirely Jesus, and I couldn’t have planned them, even if I tried (which I did, and failed lol). 

So I am trusting Jesus as I navigate being twenty. As I navigate coming to terms with actually living away from my family. With discovering what it means to be a functioning human without them physically at my side. 

Blessings to you all. May you go in peace today. And hug your family tight. 

Sincerely, 

Sophi