“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”
- Frida Kahlo
Even writing this, especially writing this, I feel super self-conscious. Does anyone need to know what its like to be a woman in your twenties? I know I do, I want to talk about it, but I don`t feel its a welcome discussion in general media/society. Sure thing, we can chat about the baby question and career choices and wether we should get married or not, but not with too many feelings and most definitely not including reflections on what a heternomative, sexist secondary school can take away from you and how it can take time to catch up.
I get asked about why its taking me so long to reach certain milestones sometimes and these questions always catch me off-guard and leave me trembling a little. Wanting to make a positive difference doesn’t really seem to be enough of an answer for most people in the real, grown up-world. I wish my art teacher would have told me that as long as what I am doing means something to someone somehow, even if that`s just me, it`s always worth it.
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I wonder what I would tell my younger self about relationships and whether I would advice her to be more careful. Probably not. Living in such a fluid community has often felt very chaotic and yet I know that I would not want to miss that freedom for anything in the world. The thrill of discovering new people is beautiful beyond words and its what gives my life all its different colors. But my priorities have shifted a lot, I am ready to choose someone to be my favorite human ever and to share my vision with someone who will make me their emergency contact person. I guess I have known that I wanted this instinctively in my early twenties, but I just wasn’t confident enough in being on my own to actually refrain from settling for something that wasn’t quiet right. The fact that being alone doesn’t make you lonely seems to be something many young people overlook. Now having the luxury of knowing what I ultimately want but also having the time to go down alleys that don`t lead me home is such a gift. I think a lot of my twenties has been about being more myself and most of the time this meant becoming weirder. At 21 I was worried that this means my dating pool was getting smaller and smaller, now I think that is actually a good thing – having a small but exquisite friends/dating pool made of rainbow-colored, super weird fishes.
“For life is the best thing we have in this existence. And if we should desire to believe in something, it should be a beacon within. This beacon being the sun, sea, and sky, our children, our work, our companions and, most simply put, the embodiment of love.”
I can`t imagine my life will go on being as wild and twisted as my twenties so far were. I left my hometown at 20 with 5 suitcases and moved to London, next to Amsterdam, then to Berlin and finally three years ago I moved to Brighton. As you do, I tried more than a dozen different careers and kissed more people than I care to remember. I wish I would have known the joy I get from writing, making arty projects and teaching yoga earlier, but I sincerely did not feel that entitlement to the happiness of actually doing what you want till I suffered enough from office jobs. Let`s call it growing pain – it was definitely necessary for me. I met an awesome girl last night and we sad on the street of my hometown and talked about the trouble of finding legitimacy in writing about our experiences. I have written about becoming a writer and the beauty of being young and broke before and I often doubt whether this is all worth it or who I am to think that`s a good way to spend my time, but listening to her and knowing that it made me happy to recognize something of myself in others was awesome motivation. It`s true what Cheryl Strayed writes in this beautiful, beautiful advice column – the shitty things do ad up to something amazing eventually, even if it takes a lot of waitressing and babysitting and waiting around at airports.
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I´ll be 30 in little more than two years. Crazy times! Here is what I hope I will know inside out and with all my heart till then:
- It`s ok to take ages if it feels right. Patti Smith says fuck the clock.
- You can`t change people and you can`t make them do something they don`t want to do
- If you wonder if you should pursue a project or not and the answer to the question “Does this make you happy and/or does it make anyone else happy?” is yes, then do it.
- Keeping good company and doing things for the people you love is the best way to spend your time.
- Time, money and space restrictions are sometimes a pain in the ass, but actually having unlimited things is scary as hell. Restrictions mean you have to be creative.
- It`s ok to take selfies because our lives matter and you`ll look back at them and laugh. You can also entertain a whole blog writing about your life because someone somewhere out there will read it and smile.
Image may be NSFW.
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