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The Crash and Burn of a 20 Something Year Old

  • kayleighgreig
  • May 19
  • 2 min read

Editorial Assistant Daniela De Vera reflects on the inevitable collapse of your twenties, and the beauty in becoming by breaking.


“For a star to be born,

There is one thing that

Must happen: a gaseous

Nebula must collapse.


So collapse.

Crumble.

This is not your 

Destruction.


This is your birth.”

Zoe Skylar


When you hit a certain point in your life where you trip over your own feet, tumble down to land on your palms and knees, you look at your bruised skin tinged with pink. Perhaps remove the small debris that found a home in the indents of your palms. The instant pain overwhelms all senses, numbing the point of impact, later to be felt to its extremity as you probe its tender area.


This collapse may happen during a burnout—an endless routine of meeting deadlines after deadlines, all the while completing your duties to be a functional human of society. This means paying bills that

somehow continue to bombard your inbox alongside advertisements for new arrival clothing, going to

work that pays said bills regardless of whether you like it or not, keeping up to date with your friends so as to not seem distant, and keeping in touch with your parents in order to subdue their nerves of you living alone.


Or


You might crumble. Bit by bit, your life could crumble away into minuscule particles, leaving you with nothing but yourself to rely on. I think there is a small fear within us that rejects the notion of isolation. We crave companionship and relations, though we can not come to terms with the relationship with ourselves. This becomes more prevalent when decisions are made that alter the norm of your life, when people come and go, taking with them years of memories, or when you are dismissed from your job, leaving you unemployed and scavenging for another to replace it. 


Either one of these likely scenarios comes to an inevitable halt—a halt of silence for the oncoming destruction, a destruction of the self. It is almost like a delayed reaction to the pain in your knees as you hit the asphalt—you tripped over nothing, yet you managed to do it anyways, and you will do it again. You may think that the world is against you, that everyone is out to get you. You may even assume that there is work at play, a higher being conducting your fate where you are destined to fail. But, as your world comes crashing down, it is a chance to live again, it is a purge of what is no longer needed, and an appreciation for what is. We catastrophise when we fall but we never think of the respite that comes. We overwhelm ourselves with the immediate pain and remind ourselves of it even in relief. We coddle the bruise that formed unbeknownst to the repetition of this pattern.


You will fall and you will break, but you will be okay.




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