As you'll see, dear reader, from the dates of my previous blog posts, I have not been a regular visitor to the 'Blogosphere' of late. I could sit here and make excuses about work commitments, hangovers, and affairs of the heart all keeping me from it, but I won't. All that needs to be said is that I'm back and I'm going to do my damnedest to write something on here, regularly as the only way to be a writer is to write.
Currently, I'm at the tender/elderly (delete as appropriate) age of twenty five, with a view to turning twenty six in three months (if I want!) and I can't begin to tell you the pressures and juxtapositions I'm facing at this point in my life. That is, unless, you're in your twenties or have passed, seamlessly, through that decade of your life in which case, 'you get me bruh'? That's what young people say, isn't it? Any clarification from my friends in their teens (you young, bas**rds, you!) would be much appreciated.
I think I'm going through 'the quarter-life crisis'. I yearn for the heady days of my teenage years when I was making decisions which, although seemingly monumental at the time, have had very little impact on the life I'm leading now. Exhibit A: Choosing one's GCSE subjects. Thankfully, the British education system deems many GCSEs compulsory. Had it not, I would never have chosen to study maths and would now be about as blind with numbers as Craig Joubert is with rugby balls and 'offside' Scotsmen (still not over it, dude!)! To this day, I'm still delighted that I didn't have some huge career plan at fourteen and instead chose to study GCSEs which I enjoyed and knew would get me good results. Unfortunately, ten years later, the career plan still remains elusive and at large...
Why am I finding my twenties so difficult, I hear you ask. Yes, I am getting there but forgive me, I'm old now and tend to go off on tangents. I consider our twenties to be perfectly summed up, naturally, by something I saw on the internet. It described them as 'that age where half your friends are getting married and having babies and the other half are too drunk to text you back.'
Personally, I'm forever flitting from one side of that coin to the other. One minute, I'm being invited to a school friend's wedding or buying something from IKEA for a college chum who's just bought a house with her boyfriend. The next, I'm being told by my friends in their thirties how young I am and how I have plenty of time to do the 'boring things' like marrying Tom Hiddleston and giving birth to our children Tarquin and Allegra (yes, those are the names I've chosen for my first borns!). One minute I'm considering increasing the monthly contribution to my pension and the next I'm doing shots at a bar with 18 year old rugby players (That sounds awful out of context!).
Then I remember that I, myself, am turning thirty in four years (that's, usually, when the vodka shots come out!) and that I really should have my life sorted by the time the big three-zero comes knocking. The horrific thing is that I am now closer to 30 than 21. Forgive me but, when did I put this baby into gear and slam down on the accelerator? And who's cut the brakes?!
We're all influenced by media, friends and family into producing a blueprint of what our lives should look like at certain ages. These blueprints vary for each of us. Person A may want to be married by 28. I don't. Person B may want to have had children by 32. I don't. If we can so easily dismiss someone else's life plan and targets like that, why do we make it so difficult to dismiss our own? I wanted to have a career as an award winning journalist by the time I was 25... I don't. I wanted to have a life partner by 30... I might not get that. But I'm living my life they way I want to and reaching the 'milestones' when and if I choose to. Whether you're twenty five, forty five or eighty five, if the life you're living gives you joy; mortgage, marriage, maternity or not, then crack on, son! Crack on!
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