My 20s Have Been a Journey of Giving Myself Permission

The moment I turned 18, my first thought was “I literally have permission to do WHATEVER I WANT,” and I proceeded to back out of my parents’ driveway with the directions to Body Art Emporium memorized. No sooner had I reached the end of the street, I got a call from my mom screeching through the phone, “if you come back with a piercing or a tattoo, don’t come back at all!”

A nose piercing and three tattoos later, my mom hasn’t disowned me yet.

It has taken me years to realize that permission isn’t just about the legalities that come with poking holes in your body or branding yourself with inked needles. Permission is something we frequently look to others to give, but rarely think about the permissions we give ourselves in more abstract and obscure ways.

On the cusp of my 27^th birthday, I’ve come to realize that every year of my 20s represents a stake in the ground toward self-acceptance and giving myself the permission I never knew that I gave, but desperately needed at the time.

Permission to Dream

I am 19 going on 20. 

I’m heading to Chicago in the fall because I have this crazy idea that one day I’m going to be a comedy writer. Last year, I started my blog, My Life Is Ridiculous, and I really couldn’t have imagined the response that it got. I have people on campus I don’t even know telling me that they loved my latest post. I mean, it’s not like I’m a celebrity or anything, given that I don’t think 1,100 fans from a tiny liberal arts school in Indiana really boosts my notoriety in the grand scheme of things. But I’m hoping Chicago will help me get there.

I fell in love with the city the first time I visited—a weekend trip with my improv group that included shows, workshops, and no shortage of underage drinking in a hotel room crammed with seven wide-eyed college students, our entire lives ahead of us.

That trip was the first time I stepped foot in the iO Theater. There was a thick energy that hung in the air, and the floors and walls were vibrating with the magic I felt in that building. It was as if I had been speaking a different language my entire life and crossing the threshold into that sanctuary was the translation I had been looking for.

I promised myself after that trip that I would find my way back there. Somehow, someway. All roads would lead me back. Writing and performing wasn’t just something that I “did.” It was me. It is me. And now I’m finally on my way back to spend a semester exploring this crazy dream of mine.

Coming from a family of lawyers and entrepreneurs, it seems a bit frivolous. Probably impulsive and brash. Most definitely not lucrative. But it’s something that feels like it’s in my DNA.

I am 19 going on 20 and the possibilities are endless. All I have to do is just say yes.

Permission to Pursue

I am 20 going on 21. 

I’m about to start my senior year, and I’ve found my direction. I don’t want to be a lawyer or an entrepreneur or a sales associate at some shitty advertising firm in the Midwest. I want to be a writer. I want to be a performer. And I’m kind of mad at myself for just now opening this up for discussion or consideration. There’s a difference between dreaming and doing and I’m ready to come back down to earth. I’m ready to stop thinking that my dream is something off in the distance that I keep chasing and I am ready to tether myself to these aspirations and put down roots with them.

I proved to myself last year in Chicago that I am dedicated to this. And the people who succeed are the ones who never give up and never resort to Plan B. I don’t want a Plan B.

I am going to graduate school. And I am not going for anything universal or generally understood or even at all transferrable, because that would be an easy out. Fuck you, MBA. Fuck you, MFA. I am going for what I want, unapologetically. I am applying for a Master’s of Science in Television program at Boston University where I can study sitcom writing and video production and sketch writing and everything I have ever hedged my bets on. And if I don’t get accepted, then that’s my sign.

I know this isn’t going to be the easiest path. I’ve heard enough “starving artist” stories to tide me over for a lifetime. But I don’t want to wake up in Southern white suburbia as a 34-year old stay at home mom who once had a dream, but now consoles herself with Zumba and Xanax and can’t bear to watch her favorite sitcoms without sobbing into her glass of red wine.

I am 20 going on 21 and I’m not going to let fear stand in my way.

Permission to Be Independent

I am 21 going on 22. 

I’m packing up my life and heading to Boston to start graduate school. I’m moving almost 1,000 miles away from home. To a city I’ve only visited once. To a school where I know no one. To an overpriced studio apartment that I have all to myself. And I am electric right now.

This feels like the beginning of my life. This is my fresh start where I get to grow into whatever I’m in the process of becoming without judgment and without hesitation. This is where I get to find myself and let go of everything I allowed people to mold me into up until this point.

One of my faults is that I have always cared too much about what other people think or what other people say, and it has taken me this long to realize that those are the people who will forever be imprisoned by their own insecurities.

I am 21 going on 22 and this is just day one of who I’m going to be.

Permission to Be Loved

I am 22 going on 23. 

I think I may have met the guy I want to spend the rest of my life with. It sounds completely juvenile and reckless to say, considering we have only been dating for a little over a month now, but I feel like going through so much of what you don’t want in a relationship makes it so much easier to identify what you do want.

I think high school and most college relationships are destined to fail and are really stupid (and I just lost half of my readers there). The only thing that keeps them from crumbling for the most part is history and comfortability and the fear of having to start all over again. Brains are really fucked up in the way they remember things and analyze things when it comes to love.

I was in a terrible relationship. Like, any-one-of-the-Kardashian-women-and-their-significant-others-at-any-point-in-time terrible. We were toxic for one another, but we kept holding on because it was the only thing we knew. Why ruin a terrible thing when you could risk finding an equally terrible thing? I mean, staying in the current terrible thing, at least you know his brand of terrible. And clearly, that’s better than having to learn a new type of terrible, right?

I was really wounded and confused when I met Pat. I was jaded and ready to fend off another suitor who would most likely take a number and get in line with the other assholes I had dated.

I have never had someone text me “good morning beautiful” on almost a daily basis. I have never had someone call or text me first, regardless of who called or texted last. I have never had someone trust me during a night out with my girlfriends, not even thinking about texting me “WHO ARE YOU WITH” or “WHERE ARE YOU.” Where I am used to abrasiveness, he is calming. Where I am used to fear, he is reassuring. Where I am used to doubt, he is forthcoming. Walking on eggshells has turned into resting on cloud nine. And the idea of love that I had before is completely eviscerated.

I am so scared that this won’t work out. Or that I’ll fall back into unhealthy habits and ruin everything. But for now, it just really feels like what I need and something I can hold on to.

I am 22 going on 23 and I am allowing myself to fall in love, real love, for the first time.

Permission to Say No

I am 23 going on 24. 

A few months ago, I quit my first job out of graduate school. Four months into a three-year contract. My first career, over. Going into it, I felt so extremely accomplished. I had just finished a degree that cost me almost $100,000, and started my shiny new grown-up life making 40k as a writer and producer at a TV news station in Louisville, where the misery and bitterness and inflated egos of mediocre anchors palpably hung in the hallways. This is what being an adult was, surely.

This was my new life—being duped into working a shift I never agreed to that was never mentioned in my interview or in my contract, dodging sexist and inappropriate comments from my boss who never passed up an opportunity to remind me that I was hired because his boys club needed a female headcount, enduring verbal beatings and personal belittling almost nightly from an old, washed up, narcissistic anchor who was the face of the station and then being told by the newsroom director “that’s just how it is around here, so you may as well get used to it.”

I sobbed into my microwave meal every night while I sat alone in my office until 11pm. And each night, being lied to and taken advantage of felt more wrong than the night before. Tolerating blatant sexism and harassment for fear of speaking up felt more wrong than the night before. Accepting verbal abuse felt more wrong than the night before. And “so you may as well get used to it” felt like the nail in the coffin.

I filed paperwork for my resignation three months in to my employment, and after wading through a legal shitstorm, I was finally out of there after four months.

Even my family judged me. Telling me that no employer wants to hire someone who quits after four months. Telling me that I had ruined my career. Telling me that I’ll hate all jobs I have, and that I should just “deal with it.” My parents were disappointed in me. My sisters talked in whispers behind my back, assuming I just must be one of those people who can’t hold a job.

To be honest, I really didn’t care. Quitting this job was like coming up for air after being tied to a cinder block and thrown into a lake by a bunch of delusional fucks who think working in a DMA that barely made it into the top 50 in the country makes them Oprah Fucking Winfrey.

I am 23 going on 24 and I am so over “getting used to it.”

Permission to Grow

I am 24 going on 25. 

I have rebounded from my “first career” that everyone told me I would never come back from. I am working in corporate America for the first time, and I have to admit, it is pretty dope. I’m not technically in a field that I went to school for. So much for “fuck plan B,” amiright? 

Even though I’m not writing as much and only performing at a local bar for small crowds, I feel like I am here for a reason. I’m learning new skills and working for a FORTUNE 500 company, which is a goal I never set out to achieve, but I am so thankful for the opportunity. Going into my interview here, being completely transparent, I was definitely in a fake-it-til-you-make-it mode. Maybe I don’t have the amount of technical experience as other candidates, but I sure as hell have the aptitude and the appetite to excel at anything to make it look like I’m an expert.

Even though I find myself doing completely different work than I had intended, I am growing in ways that I know I need to but have been too proud to admit. I’m gaining technical skills that I never knew I would be so interested in. Social listening? I had never heard of it before this role and surprisingly, I have become passionate about the storytelling behind analytics.

I’m still in Louisville, which I never intended, but at least I’m making the most out of it while I’m here. I know that this experience is setting me up for something bigger. It has to be. I can only grow so much in this role and at this company before I’m reaching for more.

I am 24 going on 25 and I’m learning that even if I’m not doing what I love, there’s always a greater purpose to it.

Permission to Jump

I am 25 going on 26. 

I think about killing myself sometimes. Woah, I know. Not a great line out of the gate. But honestly, the only way I’m going to realize it’s an issue that needs to be addressed is if I actualize it. If I say it out loud. Just like everyone who has ever heard of Alcoholics Anonymous, “acceptance is the first step of acknowledging the problem.” So, yeah. I guess I can accept that some days I feel like I am worthless and I feel that I am living a life of monotony and complacency that just cycles over and over again like that terrible Christmas movie where Brink! repeats Christmas day until he appreciates what he has.

I just got married to someone who has proven himself not only to be the love of my life, but also capable of dealing with the unpredictability and emotional chaos that comes with loving someone who has depression. It breaks my heart when he asks me what’s wrong and there are no words to describe the tightness in my chest and the tears welling up in my eyes.

I’ve put off medication for as long as I can, because I want to convince myself that I am stronger than the circumstances around me. But I’m not. I have to take care of myself. I have to figure myself out.

On the outside, I have the perfect life. But on the inside, I feel like I have given up. I used to have dreams that I would fight for. I felt invincible knowing that my spirit was undeterred. Letting go is the only way to fight off the stagnancy.

I am 25 going on 26 and if I don’t go for it now, I never will.

Permission to Fly

I am 26 going on 27. 

I am living in Chicago, the first city to truly draw me in and tie a string to my heart. My job is to write for the largest food company in the United States. Every Wednesday, I walk the halls of the iO Theater as a student, halfway through the training program and dedicated to perfecting the art that I promised myself I would pursue.

Every door that I have knocked on this year has opened for me without hesitation. I have learned that I would rather regret taking a risk than face the consequences of inaction. I have learned that if I don’t believe in myself by now, I can’t convince anyone else to do it for me.

For every year in my 20s, I’ve added a notch on my belt of self-acceptance, and I don’t expect to stop giving myself permission where I have lacked confidence or direction.

I am 26 going on 27 and I have learned that every time you jump, you make the choice to let fear weigh you down or you let your hopes carry you.

Jump. Just Fucking Jump.

I think the breaking point of when I knew I needed a change came in September when I left a John Mulaney show in tears, crying to my husband that I didn’t even know why I existed. I figure that’s a euphemistic way of saying I spent the rest of the night curled into a ball under his arms, throwing suicide on the table like it was a plate of lukewarm leftovers that I would love to eat. If I got that hungry.

It was that night when I realized I needed to either jump and feel myself soar, or I would be left inching myself out to the edge, forced to watch myself plummet. For the previous few months, I had slipped into a spiral of a depression I hadn’t known before. I had become a vague outline of myself. Like someone I would stand next to in an elevator, her name on the tip of my tongue, but not caring enough to ask. Then we got off on separate floors.

My husband got us front row tickets to a John Mulaney show in Louisville. We both really enjoyed his comedy, and this was a valiant and so very thoughtful attempt to give me a night—just ONE night—that didn’t end with me sobbing.

I love stand-up comedy. I love listening. I love watching. I love famous, mainstream comedians. I love local, niche comedians. Most of all, I love performing. For as long as I can remember, I envisioned myself up on a stage, making people laugh, making people forget about the shitty parts of life. I had dreams of moving to a big city. Los Angeles, New York, Chicago. I'd make it big. 

I did stand-up for a bit, and told myself I would get back into it. I kept performing improv here and there, but nothing consistent. I wanted to start writing sketch comedy. Louisville has never been the city for that. But somehow, I ended up there. "Tomorrow. I’ll start writing something tomorrow."

The day of the show, I peeled myself out of bed, which had become increasingly harder to do each week. But I had decided that this would be my day to turn things around. I’m allowed to have one day that I don’t feel like I’m being swallowed whole. This was the day.

Aside from my love of all things comedy, I’m also notoriously known for my abnormally small bladder. You’d think I’m trying to pass a kidney stone on a daily basis if you kept tabs on my bathroom trips. Which I would be very interested in perusing, if anyone happens to have kept a ledger.

John was in the middle of his show, and I had been throwing my head back laughing the entire time. We even made eye contact several times, which is hard not to do when I could’ve literally reached up on stage and tied his shoelaces. He knew I was enjoying the show. I knew I was enjoying the show. Happiness had made its way back to my doorstep. This was the day.

Panic struck as I realized I guzzled not only my 22 oz. beer, but half of my husband’s during the show. I got up in what I thought was a super discreet and stealthy way, doing that awkward, courteous half-bend as I shimmied past my neighbors. As I made it to the aisle of the theatre, I heard, “DON’T YOU GET UP AND WALK AWAY WHILE I’M TALKING ABOUT MY WIFE.”

It took me a second to register that John Mulaney had just called me out in front of a crowd of 2,500. Not because I had analyzed what he said, but because I saw more than 4,000 eyes looking at me, pointing at me, and laughing at me. As he continued to ridicule me down the aisle, (“yeah, go on and get outta here,” “someone in the back make sure that door closes behind her”), I felt my chest constrict. I forgot where I was. I forgot that I needed to pee. As soon as I crossed the threshold into the lobby, I burst into tears. And as hot salt ran down my cheeks, that question that hung in the corner of my thoughts for the past few months pushed its way through and jumped the queue of all rational emotions and logic and self-awareness: “why do I even exist?”

I spent the rest of the show emotionally paralyzed, standing in the shadows of the back of the theatre. I don’t remember the last 30 minutes of the show. I do remember watching my husband, who had my phone and my wallet, stay in his seat until the theatre cleared, whipping his head around and scanning the space for any sign of me.

I even made the mistake of looking at John Mulaney’s Instagram post of Louisville, and scrolled through the dozens of comments, “so mad that girl never came back!” “that one girl never returned!” and even a sick burn from a 14-year old who, in my opinion, has no fucking business being at a John Mulaney show: “sadly that one girl never went back to her seat but she was hiding in the back for the rest of the show.” Well, @shaddie_shad_shad, I wish nothing but the best for you in your presumably mediocre high school football career, and I hope that someone starts a rumor about you having chlamydia, but mainly I also hope that you contract chlamydia.

A year ago, I would have brushed this off. A year ago, I would have laughed and spouted something tawdry and crass back to John Mulaney, making me the hero of the night. Giving me anonymous notoriety—“that girl who shot back at John Mulaney,” “the girl who got heckled and held her own.”

But that girl got off on a different floor.  

This whole time, I’m thinking to myself, what the fuck happened to me?

For the past couple of years, I lived a life that I didn’t entirely love, but one that I accepted. One that was a little bit better than ‘good enough.’ One where I felt comfortable, but didn’t feel exhilarated. One where I stood on the edge of a plateau and made camp, instead of climbing, and undoubtedly falling a few times, to reach the peak. I had a wonderful boyfriend turned fiancé, who became my husband, I had great friends, I had a cushy job in corporate America in my hometown, the friendly town of Louisville, KY. On the surface, I had everything. But sometimes the façade of having everything doesn’t let you off at the penthouse, and you end up riding it all the way back down to the ground floor.

I think this was the turning point because I’m no stranger to depression. But I am a stranger to giving up. I am a stranger to saying “I can’t and I won’t.” I am a stranger to complacency and lying down and not putting up a fight. I am a stranger to “tomorrow—I’ll start tomorrow.”

So I decided to jump.

And I’m feeling myself soar.

I’ve thought a lot about perspective and perception and change recently. But I’ve also thought a lot about fear. Fear is what held me back from jumping before. Fear was synonymous with comfort for me. Fear was ‘good enough.’ But eventually, fear of staying stagnant eclipsed the fear of never fulfilling the crazy dreams I’d imagined for my future.

I jumped, and I am fucking flying.

I fell in love with Chicago six years ago, and always dreamed of coming back. There were always excuses, and always empty promises and proposed timelines; “we’ll move once we get married,” “we’ll move after tax season,” “we’ll move, at some point.”

The timing couldn’t have been more terrible. Uprooting our life and relocating to a new city during the holidays. Gambling that I would love my job, still in corporate America—a job that serendipitously fell into my lap by nothing short of divine intervention. Asking my CPA husband to roll the dice before tax season that his firm would let him work remotely. Crossing our fingers that we could sell our house with such short notice.

In three weeks, we found an apartment in Chicago that we’re in love with. I love my new job, and I’m finally at a place where I’m seen as an expert in my field and my team couldn’t be more supportive.  My husband has a home office set up in our living room, where he can work in his sweatpants and watch Netflix during his lunch break. We received a full-price offer on our house after the very first viewing, and we plan to close any day now. I signed up for my first official improv course at a renowned theatre, and I’m pissed that it doesn’t start for another month. I am writing again. I am finally. Fucking. Writing. Again. And do you have any idea how much better sex is when you’re not worried about crying or having an emotional catastrophe every 10 minutes?

None of this would have happened if I hadn't jumped. I had no clue what would happen, but I jumped. I don’t know where you are in your life. I don’t know if you’re spreading your wings or if they’re clipped. But just know that you are not the only one, and there’s not just one option.

I don’t recognize that girl who stood in the back of the Louisville Palace during a John Mulaney show. Her name is on the tip of my tongue, but I’m too focused on getting off on my own floor to ask. I don’t know whether I should thank John Mulaney, or hope that someone starts a rumor about him having chlamydia.

I am no longer an outline of who I want to be. I am in the process of creating who I want to be. Happiness made its way back to my doorstep. This is my day.