We’ve received the job rejections. We’ve lived the long nights after the breakup. We’ve felt the monotonous despair of being in a job unfit for you. We’ve lived on a paycheck to paycheck budget. We’ve watched friendships fade. We’ve longed for a plane ticket and new stamps on our passport. We’ve wondered what our purpose could be.

We’ve looked at our old classmates moving to the big cities, getting the promotion, living in the fancy apartment with exposed brick (without roommates!), posting the engagement photos, booking plane tickets across the world, and we’ve compared: Am I doing this “life thing” right?

We’ve felt the isolation as we looked at the lives of our friends: lives that were once on the same trajectory of the education system but are now on completely divergent paths. It’s easy to compare, to feel less-than the filtered snapshots of the lives we see on Instagram. We feel alone. We feel like wanderers, unsure of the paths we are charting with our lives. Is it the right path?

But Windrose Magazine is here to tell you that you are not alone. Windrose is a collection of personal narratives, interviews, and advice for navigating life in your twenties, leaving you inspired to confidently chart your own course, free of comparison. These are not articles by detached journalists citing studies that decry the “prolonged adolescence” or “laziness and entitlement” of millennials and pointing out all the ways you’re failing at adulthood.

These are stories written by your peers to assure you: you are not alone.