A reflection on navigating 23+ (and why it weirdly feels so much less exciting than 21)

I’m sure some of you have felt this weird ‘eughhhhhh’ for this age we’re trudging through. It’s not quite a comprehensible concept, but it feels like I’m in this weird timeline-lingo where I’m not exactly living my independent adult life, but I’m also way too distanced from my young life to rely on other people. I also have this strange lingering feeling of not being ready for this stage. I remember watching Sex and The City as a silly little 13-year-old thinking that tribulations like theirs would be exciting when the time came for me to experience them, but I was naively unable to recognise that despite the humorous irony of sitting in your pyjamas with a glass of wine and a tub of Ben and Jerry’s, there is nothing that softens the dejection and unadulterated fear of not at all knowing what’s coming next.

What is next? Most of us have some idea, but in so many ways we have a lot of faith that things will just ‘work out’. I mean, if you grew up anything like me (and yes, I’m very grateful), you haven’t had to deal with much of this not-knowing up till now. We just kind of went through the motions, and although there were objectives – finish school, university/training/college, travel, share-house, keep a part-time job… then, have a career you’re expected to build for the rest of your lives. That, I thought, would eventually come. Well, it’s here for most of us. But… are we ready?

I think that’s where this navigating thing becomes a pickle. Social media, like real life, glamourises youth and makes it that much more palpable that 23(ish) is just the awkward middle-child age of your 20’s. For many of us, gone are the milestones of being head-over-heels in love for the first time, discovering the city’s well-known bars every weekend, or going on our very first independent overseas trips, and we’re not doing the exciting dance of befriending our first set of work colleagues (let’s face it, most of you are on your third or fourth). But on the other hand, we’re not getting married or having babies (well, not most of us), and let’s be real, hardly any of us are buying houses. So, what are we doing? We’re laying the foundations for our lives in, well... whatever way we can. And while that just sounds ridiculously ambiguous written down, it kind of sums up how this age feels for me.

Lol, kind of got to the end of this little ramble that had NO POINT, but alas, when does anything I write have a point? I’m just a girl grappling with obscurity and the potential ~unknown~, just like the rest of ya. It’s just really nice to write about it sometimes.

Hope your journey is treating you well xxx

M.