Your 20's: Should I Have A Baby or Move to Asia?
This year I’m going to Glastonbury. I am part of the chosen few that secured a ticket. I should be overjoyed, which I am, but for some reason I keep thinking of the fact that I’ll be 23 when Taylor Swift tells me how great it was to be ’22’.
I’m not the first person to say this - and I know this because I have the internet - but being in your early twenties is a whirlwind. Everywhere you go you have people telling you that this is it. This, my friend, is the best your life gets. Older people seem to say this with a slight pleading in their eyes, like they’re seconds away from grabbing you by shoulders and shaking you for dear life as they scream ‘ENJOY IT WHILST IT LASTS’. Yeesh.
The issue is, if this is meant to be the pinnacle of my life, why do I spend 99% of the time asking what the fuck I’m doing?
Roughly speaking, my time is divided mulling over two options - do I stay (in the UK) or do I go?
Some of my friends are off travelling. They look like they’re having a great time. Maybe this is where my answers lie. I will throw it all in and look to exotic sunrises, immersing myself in culture and doing things that people do when travelling like pat a sad tiger and talk about how expensive UK alcohol is.
But, then again, some of my friends are buying houses. Buying houses. Which must mean they have savings. Some of my friends are even having children; bringing lives into this world. And, for the first time in my life, I can’t assume it was an accident. People are growing up.
There are pros and cons to both. If I packed it all in and spent literally all of the money I own on going travelling, I’m sure I’d have an incredible time, but reality would still be awaiting me. I’d effectively be delaying the inevitable - I’d still have to come home to a world where I don’t know what I’m doing.
The second option, settling down, saving up for a house, committing to the career; well it’s great and very sensible. But, do I want to? Maybe that ties me down too much, makes me old before my time, and, of course, there’s the fact that I do not own enough money to buy a house. A small detail I find, but an important one.
So, what do I do? Well, generally speaking, I tumble on through life and I unsuccessfully attempt to ignore this general feeling of unrest.
It sounds serious - and that’s because it is. I won’t try to keep this light hearted; it does depress me - with a capital ‘D’. I’m dressing it up, but essentially what I’m asking is this - ‘what will make me happy?’. The fact that I don’t always know makes me sad. At times, life feels like I’m just strapped in for a ride and the most I can hope for is to see some beauty before all colour fades.
I compare myself to people. I find out the ages that people performed at the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury; I mull on the fact that Alex Turner was 22 when he headlined with Arctic Monkeys, I dwell over Adele actually being 21 when she wrote ’21’, I think about how maybe I need to take more vitamins because the 20 year olds on Love Island look like they could knock me out with one carefully considered hit.
It’s weird; but for the first time in my life I feel old. I sit up and think about being 25 in 2 years time. I ask myself how much I should have achieved in that time. Surely, I should have figured things out?
I’m constantly wrestling with this sense of boredom. Didn’t drinking used to be more fun? Why is there so much liquid in a pint? And didn’t I used to have a better wardrobe? Do I wear too many blouses now? Did I ever use to watch this much TV? Didn’t I used to literally have the time of my life just sinking a few Thatcher’s with school friends when we were meant to be playing hockey?
It worries me that maybe everyone else is wrong, this isn’t the time of my life because i’ve already lived it. I worry that there was a day that went past without me noticing it but, at some point, I got excited about something new and silly for the last time. I miss stupid things like house parties and fake ID’s and teachers and having crushes. I worry that my life now is really is about compromise and words like ‘cycle’ and ‘rat race’.
But, there’s also a voice that tells me to fuck off.
I know at times it all feels so ultimate, so unavoidable, but I also know that I am only 22. I know that the pressure I am feeling comes from illusions; I know that life goes in dips and dives and sometimes things are great and sometimes they feel a bit more tough. I know that there are so many unexpected things coming my way. I may travel the world, but maybe i’ll buy a cat and settle down. I could make one great convoluted plan entitled ‘How To Be Happy’ but it would never happen because, the rumours are true, you don’t know what’s round the corner.
I can’t help but thinking that society continually fucks us over. I think of the pressure to be ambitious rather than happy. I think of the insidious attitude towards those in the retail and hospitality sector; from Boris’s lovely ol’ goverment declaring those people as ‘unskilled’ and how I’ve seen people treated when they explain they are working in a high street shops - like they were ‘in between jobs’ or lost, or underachieving, or aiming low. Like this could never possibly be the aim. Like they should want ‘more’. Whatever the fuck that is.
We’ve got wrapped up in this idea of success when it’s all bullshit. At the end of your days, I doubt your last thoughts will be on success, it will be of happiness.
So, yes, your twenties are a whirlwhind. Leaving education and finding yourself in the abyss of figuring out what you want to do for the rest of your life - it’s fucking terrifying. Nowadays, we have so many opportunities it’s hard to know which ones to take.
It feels like you should be further behind, and ahead, at all times. You’re trying to find your track. Your peace. Your people. You’re trying to plan and then un-plan. You’re trying to figure out what makes you happy - like that’s a simple task. I suspect it may always be like this though, no matter your age.
But, in my darkest moments, I like to think back to the fact that the characters of Friends were 25 and 26 in the very first season and most of them had nothing figured out.
I think about the fact that there are so many incredible things coming my way; this magazine being one of them. I know that if I continue to follow my heart, akin to a Disney princess, I will be fine. I know that I have courage to make bold decisions and I need to not think of what I should be doing and think about what I want to do. I know that sometimes it is about taking it day by day. I know that all of that is easier to write than do. I know that, really, things are always okay.
I know that really there is NO deadline to any of this. I could go pat a sad tiger and complain about English alcohol prices at any point of my life. I could change job at any point or move to a different country or start a new hobby or settle down - it’s all my choice. There’s no reason to do any of this in your twenties; the pressure we feel to do it all NOW is from no rational source. You have the whole rest of your lifetime to have fun. The most dangerous idea is that you have to do everything now. You don’t. I don’t. We don’t.
Life doesn’t get worse as you age. It just does if you let it. If you close yourself off to new opportunity and excitement; that’s when the colour fades. Otherwise life is just life. You’re the one who controls how happy you find it.
….Just take what I’m saying with a pinch of salt. Afterall, I’m still young.
Written by Jess Blackwell
I’m Jess, the founder of The Everyday Magazine. Day to day I work in marketing and am training up as a photographer in a Boudoir Studio in Bath. As a general rule, I like to write about things that would be awkward to discuss with the family. Try not to blush.