substack essays to read in your twenties

substack essays to read in your twenties

words of wisdom, chaos and understanding: on love, life, faith and all of the above

Anastasia Krogh

Oct 11, 2026

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When you reach your twenties, there seems to be an endless amount of recommendations aimed towards you. What to read, listen to and watch when you reach beyond coming-of-age and not quite full-fledged adulthood. I have gone through habit holes of novels, music, series and movies that seem to encapsulate what I am meant to experience in a decade so particularly marked with nostalgia. Some of it good, some of it less so. Some of it relevant, some of it inaccurate.

I myself have sometimes compiled my own sentiments. Made playlists for flings, notes for friends, schedules for cousins. Trips down memory lane when I was still on the road. Sometimes I find myself with sacred curations without noticing. All the essays saved on Substack being one of them. Words that have struck me, that have stayed with me. Sentiments I believe could be written on my skin, despite coming from across oceans, across borders. Essays that fill me with

déjà vue

.

I have found myself revisiting those words often lately. Enough to feel a necessity to share some of them. Please enjoy my curation of six essays to read in your twenties.

First day of Fall

- by Rachel Nguyen

I’ve hardly written a word all summer — just keysmashes scattered across a dozen hysterical apple notes screaming ‘i’m tired i’m over this i don’t want to move please god help me now. i am violent’.

I suppose with this new-found rest, I can spend my remaining twelve hours of daylight glorifying rather than grumbling. After all, my algorithm is reminding me to be grateful and to not overlook my growth. Which is an ambitious assignment for somebody who has spent an unaccountable amount of time becoming nobody, without any immediate ambitions of becoming anybody.

How to Decentre Your Hometown

- by Emilie Mendham

In school, I realised fast that the quickest way to survive was to shrink further and further inside of myself – no one notices you if you are small. So, you learn to be quiet, and you learn to be soft and you don’t let yourself out of that box for a long time. Now, as an adult, I’m wondering how to decentre my hometown fast so I can actually achieve the dreams publically that I want to. I can’t be the person who never achieved all that I could’ve because of the phantom memory of a school bully.

I’m So Full of Figs I Might Puke

- Quincy Whipple

I think a lot of us do this. Feel like we aren’t allowed to call ourselves something that to others seems so obvious. I think when you put a position or a job title on a pedestal, it becomes hard to recognize when you’ve finally grown tall enough to reach it. I know that I constantly have a running dialogue with myself and the different things I feel like I can’t say that I am. I’m a runner but have never done a marathon, so am I still allowed to call myself one? I’m a writer but haven’t published a book. A model but haven’t walked on a runway. I think it’s ok to call yourself the job title even if it’s self-appointed.

People, Place, Thing(s)

- by Hailey

at 16 we met by chance of error in class scheduling. I had my first Dunkin’ Donuts latte in your passenger seat, demanding to know why you chose Whole Milk because cows just started getting bad PR and I am chronically lactose intolerant. nothing could stop you but your nut allergy, I came to find out. we share the same deep inner knowing that we were destined for more than what life originally promised us. I can only talk to you and Mol about this. everyone else is a narcissist about it.

Girls Want God

- by Freya

Maybe it’s vain of me to worry there’s nothing more than me, that I’m the one with the power, standing alone in the empty sky. It’s a worry I’d do anything to be unburdened from. Pieces of belief cling to me in their conviction as much as I cling to them, with such a force that my knuckle bones burst through the taught skin. I’m desperate for something, anything, whatever it looks like. I see nothing.

Is beauty still vanity when the audience is one person?

- by Natosha

that’s what beauty becomes when you’re in love. less performance, more offering. you put on the earrings they like. you wear the jewelry they once said made you look expensive. you take a little longer getting ready because you know they are coming over. you change your shirt three times. you take a picture before you leave and ask,

do you like this?

and maybe you already know the answer. maybe you’re asking because you want to hear it from them. maybe you want to know that they still look at you that way. maybe you just want to make them smile.

Love,

Anastasia

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