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My early twenties were the stickiest and tumbliest years of my life—my Bambi years. I was in a new city, working my first full-time media job, trying to finish my degree. I was living paycheck to paycheck but I was also really living, you know? Those years were messy but in the best way, like a perfectly innocent but incredibly juicy dollop of gossip.
Right now—at a time when each day occurs within the same wash-rinse-repeat cycle—I’m craving a little of that harmless early-twenties turbulence. I’ve been thinking about that time a lot lately. It could have something to do with the fact that this is my final year in my 20s (what a way to see ’em out, amiright?). It might be because people have been posting photos of themselves at 20 on Twitter.
Whatever the reason, I’ve spent a good portion of my quarantine fantasizing about some highly specific and extremely unexpected things from my early twenties.
These things include:
The taste of vodka-lime-soda.
Wearing HEELS.
Sleeping in fake tan the night before a night out.
Getting ready at my best friend’s house, sitting on the floor, knees touching, both trying to do our makeup in the same full-length mirror.
Squeezing people’s hands and faces on the dance floor whenever one of the songs from our pre-gaming playlists came on.
Going to a friend’s place the next day to pick up my makeup bag, crawling into their bed and catching up about the night before.
Celebrating the bargain that is the cheapest bottle of white wine from the liquor store.
Zig-zagging through the crowd at a music festival with a friend’s hands on my shoulders, trying to remember where the hell the rest of our friends were.
Making friends with a stranger in the line for the porta potties.
The assumption that everyone would want to go out dancing for their birthday, and that everyone else in our group would be free and excited to go.
Getting $10 Thai food delivered and eating it cross-legged around someone’s coffee table, with the previously mentioned bottle of wine.
Watching new episodes of Gossip Girl with my housemates on Tuesday nights, squeezed onto the $100 couch we all chipped in to buy.
Finishing every sentence we spoke inside the house with: xoxo Gossip Girl.
Uploading an entire album of photos to Facebook after a single event.
Relating a little too much to everything on Thought Catalog.
The Valencia filter.
Everything, really.
What do you miss?
Feature photo via Everett Collection.
