Feeling 20(25)

By Angie Barrios Mackepeace, Editor-In-Chief of Gente Cuaderno

In the summer of 2025 I celebrated my 20th birthday, and it seems I forgot to care. Turning twenty years old was probably supposed to mean something, but any reflection felt hopeless and unnecessary. I wanted to forget the past year, focus on the uphill battle, as I almost do now. However, now, in my 20 ½ years of wisdom, I can see how I might’ve subverted a devastating echo chamber with myself by finding the power in just moving forward.

Mourning an entire year, as if it were more than a time period, a unit of measurement, feels unhelpful. In fact, to hang on to the non-past, to let it weigh you down, even if it is out of disappointment, is unhelpful. It sure feels like a big deal to say 2025 is behind us, for better or worse. For months, the light that once filled people was dimmed. The effect I’ve come to recognize is self-preservation: sacrifice in favor of survival. Which leads me to my own hopeless mantra: what could’ve been. I know I’m not alone when I say, I’m at a loss for perspective. 

Somewhere between No Kings and Greenland the tone got serious and never lightened up. I’m incredibly unimpressed on a daily basis, and that can’t be good for goal-setting. The sentiment that seems to roll off the tongue these days is that “these are unprecedented times.” Whether that is true or we just lack the scope, it could be possible we are giving the “times” too much credit. 

Many of my peers and I voted in a presidential election for the first time in our lives, and what a let down that was. Hearing and participating in the young adult discourse of reflection feels incredibly redundant knowing we’re severely lacking the foresight to even begin. In our twenty-ish years of existence, we’ve come to know political and social unease as the norm, learned to make humor of the tense climate in combination with our exceptional digital fixations, and started to step into the workforce with an unrelenting assumed sense of self. 

At my age, my parents had created a sense of independence that is entirely inimitable today. They had jobs, as I do– lived on their own, as I do. They watched the television with frustration and disappointment, as I do. But, what draws the line between their post-adolescent experience and mine is that the world looks very, very different. Their self-preservation was focused on the physical and tangible parts of ourselves, while ours is slightly more spiritual.

2026 is set to bring a whole new round of challenges with the crucial midterms and continuation of the authoritarian regime in the U.S., and while it might be near impossible to take our energy and focus off of the face of the enemy, dwelling on the negative and aggrandizing situations are not the solutions. 

I heard once, in a Democratic Theory class, an intriguing argument for lowering the drinking age. The discussion followed the usual reasoning that if a young adult of eighteen is able to go off and die for their country, they should be allowed to have a drink. Furthermore, this argument stated that young adults’ inability to share deep, philosophical conversations over a beer is harming our society. I consider this a form of forced preservation, the worst kind, because before we know it, we won’t even share sober conversation or convene in public spaces. We’ve sacrificed so much already, and unfortunately, I don’t see the decline deterring. 

The curiosity of what the year could’ve entailed, if not for the spur of unpredictability and corresponding fear of the government is accompanied by the stress of getting older and losing time. My friends and I joke about “pushing thirty” as, one by one, we advance into our twenties, but I can sense the seriousness amidst the humor because we are becoming adults in conditions that force us to overcompensate each year. We must consider the next ten, fifteen, twenty years with caution– careful to dream too far over yonder or to ask too much of the world. 

A quiet moment on the night of my twentieth revealed to me elation I could feel once freed from the worries of the world. I stood outside, grateful to be twenty years old. The short moment was preceded by a deep, intentional conversation, the specifics of which I hold closely with the friend I shared them with. So, if anything, this must be my advice to the other twenty-somethings celebrating this decade of life right now: find someone to talk to and just keep talking. Self-preservation doesn’t have to mean a suppression of our human desire to express ourselves.

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Angie Barrios Mackepeace is a proud member of the Gente Organizada & Pomona community, currently working as Narrative Change Organizer & Editor and Gente Cuaderno’s Editor-In-Chief. She studies Creative Writing and Political Science at Chapman University.