I spent last weekend doing two things: playing cornhole and turning 20. Though one seems more important, I was reminded of my childhood as I tossed a hacky sack and hoped it would go into the hole across the field.

When I was a kid, my dad set up cornholes in our backyard to encourage us to go outside. My siblings and I would be forced outdoors and spend hours tossing bags into the holes and competing. For my 10th birthday, all my friends gathered around for a competition where my partner and I came in dead last — which is almost poetic, seeing as 10 years later, I ended up in the same position. I was always meant to be inside, typing away at a computer, rather than trying to toss a bean bag. A decade has passed, and I still can’t toss it high enough or strong enough for it to go into the hole. 

But I think that’s what made playing cornhole so much fun and so nostalgic. I might have gotten bigger, my hands able to grasp two sacks instead of one, my feet three sizes larger, and yet my name is still at the bottom of the ranking. You’re supposed to get better as time passes, yet somehow all that growing leads to the same results. And even though we got out of the first round with no chance of recovering for a second match, I was grinning from ear to ear. I didn’t play to win — I played because it was fun, and that was enough. 

I was also happy because I didn’t lose alone. At 10 years old, my partner was my twin sister, Sydney. Even though we screamed and hollered about foul play — the only foul thing being our lack of skill — and how we should have won, I had just as much fun sitting on the sidelines whispering to each other about who would beat the next team. At that point, the world seemed small, and I was happy to share it with my sister as we welcomed the next year of our lives. We welcomed it as losers, but we did it together. And that was more than enough for me. 

This year, my sister is miles away from me. Instead of celebrating our birthday, we lament how it’s been almost six months since we’ve seen each other. We spent our birthday on different campuses with different friends. We blew out two different birthday cakes and tried to call each other for 10 minutes before returning to hang out with our new and different friends. The cornhole at home is faded and dusty, placed in the back of the yard so as not to distract from the new lawn. It sits there silently, as there aren’t any more kids to play with it. My dad spends more time working to pay for college than encouraging us to play outside. I spend more time in a basement typing away and glancing at my calendar to see what I must do next. The world is big and scary as my inbox fills up and my Blackboard glares red more than green. Turning 20 is different from turning 10, where you cross your fingers and hope for a new Nintendo for you and your twin to play with inside. Turning 20 means you cross your fingers and hope you have enough money to pay tuition or Grammarly subscription costs. Everything is different, and you can’t ever go back to playing cornhole with your sister at home for your 10th birthday.

But who says you can’t try? Getting older doesn’t mean forgetting about cornhole for homework and calendar events. It means saying yes when your friend asks if you would be interested. It’s wearing your favorite overalls and putting your hair into puffs. And when you eventually and inevitably lose, it’s giving your friend a high five and going out for coffee afterward and giving your sister a call on the way to brag about the sunglasses you got as swag for playing. Yes, it’s different, but you can take solace in the small things that are the same. I can always count on losing at cornhole, no matter my age. 

Turning 20 means I am no longer a teenager. It means entering the era of adulthood with jobs, relationships, and graduating. But playing cornhole this weekend was like giving my younger self a hug and high-fiving because we are still the losers of cornhole. And even though I am moving towards bigger and better things, I can still do the things that make growing up a little less scary.