Inception

I don’t want to turn 20.

Every year, I’ve dreaded my birthday, and this year even more than usual.

I am in a period of such great transition, a sort of fleeting reality. My family is moving across the country, I signed my first lease, I am making new friends, I’m getting a new major, I’m preparing for the job market, I’m trying to make sure I complete every single one of my homework assignments and readings so as to not fail my classes.

Put simply: I’m nervous.

But it should also be known that I’m nervous in most situations. I’m nervous when I have to talk to people, I’m nervous when there are too many people in an enclosed space, I’m nervous when I go to sleep, I’m nervous when people don’t text me back, I’m nervous almost perpetually.

I told you: I don’t like change.

But I came up with an idea to channel this (nervous) energy and discontent about the future in a way that allows me to best understand what it means to be content in two decades of existence and learn a little thing or two from others who have 20+ years of wisdom behind them.

Over the next 110 days (that is, the amount of days until my birthday), I will reach out to and interview as many people as possible (hopefully twenty, but I tend to get a bit ambitious). It won’t just be any random people that I interview, but twenty people who are celebrating twentieth anniversaries (of anything) this year.

So, loved ones, take a journey with me. I’m posting this online so you can learn with me as well. Growing old sucks, but growing wiser together is pretty neat.

Know someone who’s celebrating a 20th anniversary? Tweet at me or along with me at:

@mrgnvckrs or #ProjectTwenty