Half Truths, Faulty Handouts, and a Hunger for Real Guidance

Letters to the Lost Twenties

No one really prepares you for the loneliness of becoming. That strange, in between space of being a young adult where you’re too grown to be shielded but still too unformed to fully carry yourself

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People often talk about growth as if it’s a checklist. Get the degree, get a job, get married, get stable. As if doing these things will magically quiet the storm inside you.

But the truth is, many of us are quietly unraveling. Not because we’re lazy. Not because we’re ungrateful, but because the tools we were handed were incomplete.
We were raised on half truths and hollow motivation. We were taught how to survive, not how to feel, not how to sit with shame, not how to fail gently, and not how to come back from a life we no longer recognize.

And that’s where the silence starts, when you don’t know how to ask for help because you're not even sure what you're feeling.

I recently had a conversation that reminded me how heavy this silence can be. It wasn’t a therapy session. It wasn’t a deep talk planned on purpose. It was a simple back and forth, honest, soft, a little messy, and full of things we rarely say out loud.

He said he felt like he had missed some turns. That maybe it was too late to fix it.
And I remember replying with something my mother told me:

“If God shows you something, even if it’s late or delayed, it’s not punishment. It’s a gift.
Even if you’ve started seeing the consequences, even if it stings a little, You’re still allowed to turn it around. You can literraly change it 180.”

And I meant it.

We talk about healing like it’s always some clean, empowering thing, but sometimes healing begins with sitting in the discomfort of "I wish I had known better."
Sometimes it begins with looking at a life you didn’t choose but still have to live in and saying, “I’m going to try anyway.”

We talked about wanting everything. To succeed, to rest, to make our parents proud, to love fully, to escape pain, to live softly, all at once.

And I want to admit that

“Even though it’s okay to be selfish, we can’t have it all. I wish we could. I do. But maybe what we do get… maybe it will be enough, maybe even better than what we thought we wanted.”

There’s something holy about surrendering what you thought your life would look like and trying to love what it’s becoming.

I won’t lie to you. There are still nights I cry for no clear reason. There are still mornings where getting out of bed feels like dragging my soul across the floor. There are days when I scroll and scroll and scroll, not looking for anything, just trying to feel something. And still, I get up, not because I’m always strong, but because I’m learning that strength isn’t loud. Sometimes, strength is sitting with your fear and not letting it name you. Sometimes, strength is choosing softness in a world that keeps demanding you harden.
This version of adulthood doesn’t look like what I imagined. It’s quieter, lonelier,
More layered, less magical, but somehow… more real. And even in the confusion, sometimes I find comfort.

“Sometimes I love me some confusion. It humbles me. Makes me laugh at some things in my life.”

And that’s become one of my quiet truths. Confusion, when you stop fighting it, becomes a kind of teacher. Not the one who gives you answers, but the one who makes you slow down and ask better questions.

So to whoever is reading this…
Maybe you’re behind on everything. Maybe you’re tired of giving your best and still falling short. Maybe you’re scared to admit how lost you feel because everyone around you seems so sure.

You are not alone.
You are not too late.
You are not falling apart, you are peeling back layers that were never yours. Dreams that were too small and expectations that never saw you fully.

Some days you’ll wake up and wonder how you got here. Not the ‘here’ you dreamed of, but the one that’s a little heavier, a little lonelier, and a little more confusing.

This letter is for that version of you.

The one still searching for guidance, still learning how to breathe through the blur.

with love,

Dayo.