22 & not a clue

Do we need things to stress over? Things to disappoint us? To teach us to demand more and accept less? Or is our lot simply that we refuse to be satisfied. 

I am under no allusions anymore that I am impervious or invincible to getting older. This reality was brought abruptly to my attention this morning, whilst peering into the mirror sans glasses I caught sight of a faint whisp of brown under my chin. 

When you tell someone you're in your 20s and you're a ______ (fill the blank). They may roll their eyes, or smile at you wistfully, pitying your naivety. You're a label and a uniform. A pay cheque away from the next purchase or a boyfriend away from 'the one'.

You are running from one dream to the next and slamming your sorry heart around without a care. You are living for the moments when you feel you've achieved something. When someone recognises your accomplishments, when your parents say they're proud or your friends say they're jealous. You are grasping at your future with claws unfurled.

At the same time most of the things you do are tinged with the feeling that it just doesn't count because you are supposed to spend this decade fucking up. You're supposed to be learning all of life's lessons one bad decision at a time. So to hear that this learning curve isn't meant to go on for an entire decade, but more to be built upon and seized is a cause for relief. Because it means you're not mad to think it's not ok to waste the next 8 years screwing around. Which seems to be the conscious decision of most of your peers at times.

I have never wanted to play 'emotional musical chairs' with men, however it feels it has happened that way regardless at times. I don't know a woman who isn't guilty of choosing less than what she deserved it feels an inherent part of the modern female mindset. We choose wrongly because we choose to treat our twenties like a rough draft - it'll make a better story I suppose. However in the end we are using up precious time and rambling through paragraphs of a life we cannot re-write. We can't then rush in to another decade once we hit thirty expecting it to be easy to find a partner and settle down. Time catches up with us eventually.

Build on your experiences from one to the next. Cut loose the dead weight friends, choose the off the wall ideas and go with them. Because ultimately the new friends will bring the new people and new opportunities which will broaden your horizons and maybe even change your life. Never stop being curious. Don't sit there being the only one still running around to the music so you grab the closest chair - walk away from the party & find a new one. Don't lose your innocence and appreciation for the simple, at the same time don't accept less than what will make you happiest. Forgive yourself all your mistakes - learn from them.

She sits with smudged blue cheeks beside daddy with his huge hands. Hands bigger than the plates mummy washes every night. Hands with wiry hair that doesn't end or start from arm to knuckle. Daddy's little girl in an AFL top and CFC on her cheeks. Asking questions quietly so he leans in. His bushy ear brushing her blonde kiss curls as he listens. She is safe and sound bedecked and loved. She is wanted and paraded by the man with big hands. He holds her close in the crowd and when she can't see, up we go, above everyone else, hold on tight, patting his bald spot she giggles.