22 & not a clue

If you're a normal person then you probably remember everything you haven't done the moment you try to close your eyes and lie still. If you're like me then you type until the small hours and then give up thanks to exhaustion. Seriously though, what's with the lists and the buzzing thoughts, how do we control a monkey mind in a modern world where even the trains by my window make less noise than my thoughts.

The thing is, if I didn't have that half hour buzz before bed I wouldn't wake up and know exactly what needed doing the moment I stepped into the office. Tough break. Also since when did my life revolve around the office (she complains, yet really she loves it). So maybe the sleepless nights, endless deadlines and empty bank accounts have been worth it, maybe they're worth this rush I get when I'm working on 5 different things at once and thinking two steps ahead. Still making mistakes. Still learning. But getting somewhere.

When I'm not writing copy to pay the rent I'm trawling Etsy, collecting endless pieces of reclaimed vintage furniture and handmade home-wares to adorn the flat I don't have. I have bookshelves in wish lists for books I don't own, and artsy typography prints to be displayed on a wall to convey some kind of meaning. Suddenly I'm obsessed with all the trappings of a life that screams success. Not quite a Mulberry handbag and granite floors but my own version of what a career-driven 20 something's flat should look like.

I haven't written for myself since December and I've developed a bad case of 'Twitter fear'. It's amazing how our focus shifts, we re-prioritise our priorities. Six months ago I laughed at having 'stuff' - it traps you to one place and holds you back. Now I have digital shopping carts brimming with drift wood picture frames. The girl who only needed blu tac now dreams of ornate frames and mounted art work.

My backpack is starting to collect dust - but that rarely lasts long. How funny that we become the things we said we wouldn't and when we do, sometimes we are happier than we thought we would be. I think I've commenced nesting out a life I'm starting to see for myself, clearly one with too many arts and crafts and witty quotes on walls, but one I like the look of.

There is this viscious chicken or the egg paradox which comes with living in London. You can't get a flat without a job and getting a job is infinitely harder when you're sleeping on a friends sofa without your own flat. So when I lost my dream flat in Shepherds bush for the second time I realised I wasn't going to get it all. 

I'm breaking up with the sofa I've been sleeping on for the past month and moving to Kent. Further from London, more expensive to commute. Why? Because it will be to live with my wonderful boyfriend, I'll be cared for and truthfully? It's the only realistic option I have left. I don't actually have anywhere else to go. 

When I got the news on Friday I sobbed unprofessionally and left blue roll bits everywhere. When my colleagues found my hiding place I knew work (my current PR internship) wasn't the best place for me today. I left and had multiple dramatic phone calls with my Iron Lady Norn Irish Ma. A plan of action was then made once I'd had a cup of tea and cried some more. 

Now, on Sunday evening I'm on a replacement rail service bus from London Bridge heading back to the sofa after a wonderful weekend with the beard. I still have absolutely no idea what the next four weeks are going to look like. Nor do I know when I will be moving back to London. But I do know I'll be ok. I do know that in 8 weeks time I'll look back and think, 'that was absolutely shite, but I'm fine now'. I know this because it's happened before. I learnt from it the last time. I dealt with this uncertainty and fear before. I have got experience. 

And despite everything, that feels good, that makes everything just a tiny bit better. Because this too shall pass.

I am a hypocrite. As a devotee of plus size fashion, its mantras, bloggers and all it stands for I am committing serious hypocrisy. For the past two weeks I have been living on wheatgrass shakes, cuppa soups & poached eggs. Why? Because I am about to jettison off to Thailand where all manner of selfies and beach/bikini related photography will happen. My travel buddy and Best friend accompanying me is beyond snappy happy. Throw in a reunion with uni friends who are model-esque and you have one very insecure and hungry 22 year old.

Increasingly I'm noticing things that never seemed to matter before which now alter everything in their finite detail. Like the creases in a skirt that previously I wouldn't bother to iron or the sudden necessity to polish my shoes and finally the importance of eyebrows. These details are filling in the space between all the other things I think about. Not quite so much so that I am beginning to turn into a 52 year old shorter version of myself, but enough that I smugly smile and think 'I'm a grown up.'

Speaking of which last week I paid a wizened crone $200 for the privelege of wearing lipstick and discussing my finances. It is the most expensive grown up thing I have ever done and thank god the ATO is rewarding me with tax back otherwise I would have lost my shit. Each adult thing is a personal mile stone, an achievement in that I did it myself. Pathetic really considering millions of people do these things everyday.

I guess what I am celebrating is the subconsciousness of it all. It's becoming second nature to do sensible things. I still don't understand the stock market or how to wire a plug - but I have done my tax return and I remember to pencil my eyebrows each morning so that counts right? With six weeks left of my Australian adventure I am financially independent and hopeful that I may not be as clueless as when I arrived.

It's human nature to freak out, but it's even more natural to learn and grow. Appreciating the things you've learnt to handle and the experiences that taught you nothing is ever that big a deal is important. Especially now when no one else will know if you remembered to polish your shoes or not: it's all up to you now. Twenty somethings are human beanstalks - we just keep growing up and reaching skyward despite all the axes and Jacks along the way.

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.

They say life begins at 40.
Well I bloody hope not.

I'm only just beginning, only just getting started on all this adult life stuff & I'm in love with it. The struggle & the complete uncertainty. Sure most of the time it leaves my stomach in knots, my brain fried & my bank account completely empty like a really bad lover. But it's living. This is life, and sure it's not meant to always be this hard. But you have to put the ground work in before you can expect results.

Staying up till all hours planning, editing and hunting down contacts has become my routine. I have to get up 30 minutes earlier just to manage all of my social media. These days, like right now for example, I write my posts on my Blogger app standing precariously wedged between a Thai woman in my armpit and the bearded hunk I try to flirt awkwardly with most mornings.
This is my life. I do a dull data entry job that pays well by day & write and plan every other waking hour of the day. It's not bad by most people's standards. But my god if someone offered me the chance to write back in London I'd jump through hoops of fire, kiss endless frogs & get the companies name tattooed on my arse.

That's how bad I want this. You have gotta have passion. If its not there then what Are you doing?

We're all just looking for a break. That opportune moment when the universe conspires to throw us a bone. I'm hunting for my bone & maybe it will just find me. Like love, a career has to be pursued, but maybe there's something to be said for having faith that it will happen if you let it.
Network, work hard, do everything besides that you love even if it means writing into the small hours & don't give up hope.

We're in our 20s baby, this was never meant to be easy.