The 5 People You Meet in Your 20s Who Change Everything

giving credit where credit is due this Thanksgiving. Even you, guy who nearly ruined my twenties

Each Thanksgiving I vow to be grateful. To take each day as it comes, count my blessings, and cherish what’s in front of me, rather than focusing on what isn’t. By Black Friday, I’ve all but abandoned these good intentions in favor of my usual Scrooge behavior—pessimistic, overanxious, and fraught with nervous energy.

But your thirties are nothing if not a revelation of who you really are, and so this year I thought instead of making commitments I know I’ll break, I’ll honor the people who have made me who I am. You probably don’t even know it, but you’ve changed my life, and this Thanksgiving, along with all the usuals, you are who I’m most grateful for. 🖤

The Rival Who Fuels Your Growth

Every great story has an antagonist. Their faces have changed over the years, from grumpy professors to boys that broke my heart, but all through my twenties, there was you. With your slate grey eyes and your undeserved successes, the cool way you have always moved through this world. I heard you’re married now to something other than your work. I didn’t feel anything when I heard about it. Funny, isn’t it? All those years obsessing over what you thought of me, thinking that to be in your proximity was to be surrounded by greatness. But all you really were was a prop. Fuel. And now, you’re someone else’s problem.

But your success over the years has guided me into the person I am, and now I see the power I craved in you for what it really was: a scared little boy throwing his weight around. Love me, see me, choose me. I’m grateful to have fallen into you when I did. Back when I was still so scared and vulnerable, so susceptible to every lie you told. Because, believe it or not, all those years of will-they-won’t-they, of undercutting and crying in bedroom closets to the sound of your sorry excuses, helped shape me and my successes. And for that, I will always thank you. Even if I do sort of hate you.

The Surprise Stranger You Didn’t Know You Needed

This one, is for you. You will never know who you are, but it’s better that way. You’ll just have to trust me on that. I always appreciated the way you said hello, and the little ways you made the morning better. The bad jokes you flung like confetti on New Years, gruff, and tender, you always felt so misunderstood.

You asked me to keep in touch when I left, and I agreed, lied right through my teeth. I knew I would never text you again. It just couldn’t be that way. But I always appreciated you and the way your words got caught in your throat when you asked. The kind eyes that helped me even when you didn’t know what you were helping with. Sometimes, it takes a stranger to understand. I will never forget you.

The Friend Who Got Away

You are everywhere. You are one of the many I write about in this Substack, and I think if you really paid attention, you might be able to find yourself in so many of my words. How thrilling, to see yourself there. Or maybe that’s just my ego talking. But it’s important to me anyway, that you know. All those late nights, the phone calls we snuck between the walls of our bedrooms, padded with lies and futures we couldn’t possibly carry out; you were my world.

I wonder sometimes if it had all turned out differently, if any of this would remain. I fear the nostalgia of you; the idea of what could have been is almost more tantalizing than anything that we ever could have created together. You are, in your best days, a ghost. My past, my mistakes, your suffering. But I think, it’s better this way.

I miss you.

The Mentor Who Sees Your Potential Before You Do

And then, there’s you. I wish I could tell you who you are. That you might find flattery in the way I’ve carved a life on the edges of your words. But I’ve always worried about the embarrassment I’d suffer at the hands of this admission. How do you tell someone that while they were just living their life you were absorbing them like they were the last thing on earth and you were a sponge for their greatness? It’s creepy, no?

But to have had a mentor who believed in me at a time when I was so broken in confidence, so aimless in direction, and yet so determined despite my ambiguity—how did I ever get so lucky? It’s pure serendipity that we ever met. Do you know how many things had to happen for us to ever be in the same place? That you saw something in me and chose to fan the flames, to uncover what was hiding beneath that shy twenty-something is a debt I can never repay.

I would not be who I am without the effortless way you invested into me. And all you really did, was be yourself.

The BFF Who Will Love You, Then Break You

You, my dearest friend, will always get a pass. It’s why I will defend you every time he says he doesn’t like the way you treat me, and it’s why I will still respond to your texts no questions asked. Because you were there for me when no one else was, and you were there for me when I called you crying, don’t answer him, you said, do not answer him. And I didn’t. And you listened. And we nearly fell asleep on the phone because you wouldn’t let me go until you knew I was ok.

So you get a pass. Because I know you didn’t mean those things you did, just like, you know I didn’t mean those things I said. It’s just how female friendships go sometimes. So you can take whatever you want, because I know, deep down, that you love me too. That at least for us, best friends really are forever. Even if we only talk a few times a year. Even if, I really do wish you would call.

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Thank you for reading! If you liked this, you might enjoy my series To All The Friends I’ve Loved Before, a collection of unsaid promises to the people who have meant the most. And if you made it this far, thank you for reading. <3 Happy Thanksgiving to my US friends and to everyone else; I hope you have the loveliest of days.

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