Being on the younger side of the spectrum for anything is pretty terrible no matter what it is. Homesteading is no exception to this rule. Don't get me wrong - I have found the older folks to be an invaluable source of wisdom and information and I'm so glad that so many are willing to share with me so freely. I feel blessed to have connected with others who share my ideas and opinions but I wish that more of these people came from my generation.
[Image from publicdomainpictures.net - CC0 Public Domain]
Even in my personal life, I feel like people forget that I'm just twenty-three. It often surprises people to know that while I love to write about self-sufficiency and sustainable living to document my journey, I also like to go out to dinner at a pub with my friends at 11pm on a Sunday night when I know good and well that I have to be up for work at 7:30am the next morning. Although I try to plan a road map for my life that will bring me the most joy and fulfillment, I also like to consistently make questionable decisions that threaten to derail all of my plans at every turn. I won't go into detail about that but from what I've heard, it's classic "Young-People" Syndrome. There's hope that I'll grow out of it with time and a few more heavy rounds of adulting.
Conversely, when people can't forget that I'm twenty-three, they tend to discount my drive and ambitions as fool-hearty or even childish. It's not as though I have the same background and experience as a second-generation homesteader who was raised to know and love this lifestyle. My intentions can't be vetted through the experience of my parents and for some reason that makes people wary. I'm not totally sure why that is. Perhaps people think I just don't "get" it because it hasn't been woven into the very fiber of my being. Who knows? If that is the case, though, I would like to assuage those feelings a bit by saying that I am so passionate about what I want to do that I don't think I'll ever be able to want the life I was raised to pursue again.
While I doubt very seriously that I'm alone in feeling young and a bit out of place in this community, there is another problem with being part of a very specific demographic that I don't think people consider: Dating is hard. I mean, dating is already hard at my age because we're all just running around and bumping into things as young adults anyway. Add in the desire for a self-sufficient lifestyle and it narrows down the list of potential suitors quite a bit.
Chances are we will see more and more of the twenty-somethings of my generation turn into the thirty-and-fourty-somethings of the future and choose to live life differently. I certainly hope so, anyway. In the mean time, the best thing I can think to do to help bridge the gap in the community is continue to try to convert the masses. I might have to work on my friends and maybe even Mr. Right, if he exists, but that's okay and when the day comes that they do cross over to the self-sufficient side, I hope they receive the same warm welcome that I did.
If you're a young person (Millennial, Generation Z, iGeneration, etc.) and you can relate to this feeling, reach out! I'd be willing to bet that there are more of us than we think.
And if you're in the market for a stubborn, hard-working young woman with big ideas, holler... JK... Kind of...