Back when my only concern was where the next piece of pasta was arriving from.
“When I hit 25, I’ll be getting botox” has become my mantra
with my twin (and anyone who would listen) since I was around 19. 25, the
elusive age where, in my head, I would suddenly wake up and need botox, a
personal trainer to speed up my metabolism and a counsellor to help me ride
through being old.
In steps the quarter life crisis. A midlife crisis at 50?
No, I’m having a quarter life crisis. At 24 and a half, to be exact. A lot of
my friends are engaged (two in the past 48 hours, to boot), several have had
children, and many more are moving in with their significant others. I, on the
other hand, am sat in my pyjamas at 4:30pm on a Sunday watching Homeland whilst
inhaling a bagel (it’s ‘protein’ though, so it’s okay). It’s not that I don’t
feel fulfilled, but that everyone else is moving ahead of me and doing the
grownup stuff.
At the start of each week, I’ll begin to think about how
every morning I’ll get up, pick out a bomb outfit for work and absolutely kill
my week, both in work and at home. Being brutally honest, my alarm goes off at
6am every weekday morning, and instead of seizing the day like all good self
help books advocate, I hit the snooze button until around 6:20, which is around
the time I’ll throw myself out of my bed, trip over my hair straighteners and
try and dash around my house, ready to be leaving at 7am looking semi-human. My
normal breakfast is porridge with a spoonful of Nutella (no avo on toast here,
folks) and my morning tea is Tetley with milk (no bulletproof coffee here
either). At the gym, I’ll scroll social media whilst warming up, and will
mentally will my body to keep going through the cardio which it is having to
endure, so that I can look semi decent on the beach this year.
I have spent many hours examining my hair to check for any
signs of, shock horror, a grey hair. Twice, I have found one. And twice, I have
stared in absolute horror at the find, only to begin to imagine what my hair
would look like completely grey at 30.
I am yet to master how to stop a leak from a pipe, or know
how to change a tyre on a car. What I can do, however, is drink a whole bottle
of wine in under an hour and still be standing – who’s the real winner here?
It’s all of the little things like this, that lead me to
feeling unfulfilled and having a ‘crisis’ (albeit largely satirical, nobody
panic) at the age of just under 25. Do I need botox? No. No I need more damned
sleep and a moisturiser which does its job. I will also not stop laughing to
avoid more wrinkles, and I will not stop drinking my wine in a bid to look
better on the beach.
Sure, my crisis is coming at me full tilt whilst all of my
friends are planning their marriages, their nurseries and where the sofa is
going to go in their new flat, but whilst they are planning their new lives, I am
rummaging my way through my current one, and finding things to laugh at in each
situation.
I am learning to become more independent, after having
several fantastic housemates over the years who have been both friends and life
counsellors whilst I’ve sat on my bed eating a McDonalds and complaining about
another round of life drama which, in the grand scheme of things, are either
very minor, or so ridiculous that it’s now become funny.
I’ve started to care
less about what people think of me, and more about what I want to do with my
life. I used to be embarrassed when people found out I had a fitness Instagram and
a blog, where I would express my internal monologue on a wider platform. Now, I’ll
happily tell people what I’m tapping away on my laptop about, and I will
happily snap away photos of myself for my fitness Instagram without feeling
awkward if they asked what they were there for.
I am in a very fortunate position to be buying a house of my
own next year, completely solo. And whilst I can’t help but feel a sense of
excitement for officially being a home owner; I am mostly excited about owning
my own dog, which I will name Thor.
There, I said it.
Judge me and my dog name choices. But this is how I will spend my evenings,
scrolling Pinterest for my little castle of my own, whilst simultaneously
wondering how many dogs are too many dogs to own in one place.
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