100 Stories // * 5. Coursing through the terrible twenties. I’m often thankful for those short snippets of stolen conversation on Twitter, reminding me – whether through #relatable GIFs or genuine chatter – that it’s okay not to be okay. Sometimes when I’m enjoying a peacefully and gladly slow early Saturday afternoon, I wonder if there’s a pinpointed moment where things click into place and I don’t have to awkwardly amble from one activity to the next, from one high to its imminent low. Is there a moment when you find a happy medium, an idyllic balance? Perhaps that’s it - we don’t find that moment and freefalling towards happy is that non-moment.
Don’t rely on others to create and sustain your happiness, but do put faith in yourself. It’s always in these quiet, to-yourself moments that you work things out with yourself but also in which you can sit and quite easily begin to worry about this and that. Maybe I should have made more of an effort? I was very busy though. And, hey, friendships work in two ways. Could I have a wider group of friends if…? Why haven’t I achieved this yet? Stop. Be a little kinder, to yourself. You’re doing just fine. For every similar thought you’ve had, I’ve had it too, so has everybody that might or might not read this post.
In attempting to blend in, you may only find yourself standing out. And that’s very, very much a good thing. There’s so much good to be found in freefalling and careering towards your best self, your work in progress. I could safely label my past few months as freefall, a period of time where I’ve had no hard and fast plan aside from to savour the little moments and boldly attempt to adult. What I’ve learnt? My attempt to adult might not be what I envisioned it to be when I was much younger, but it works, for me. I’m lucky enough to eat hot meals every day, make time to work out, always have time to game and watch guilty pleasure K-dramas and anime, to have a job in a hard-to-reach industry, to be able to meet bill payments and laugh candidly at my futile attempts to human outside of all of this.
Sometimes I contemplate what it means to be successful. Like honestly, what is that? C’mon, we all define success differently and it changes for each of us all the time. I’ve had a successful weekend in that I made it to the bank before it closed at 12.30pm – yay adulthood! – and I suppose you could say I’m carving out a successful career. Does success bank on you knowing what you want? I have no idea what I want. Don’t ask me about my 5-year plan but my 5-hour plan mostly revolves around having a complete Fairytale theme on my Animal Crossing town and maybe having a dog to cuddle. (A real life one.) I really have no idea right now and I kinda like it. Is that success?
So what if I’m freefalling through my twenties, wishing for one thing yet falling into another? So often we’re so busy worrying about our one step ahead that we forget about our steps right now, our present and presence. The beauty in freefall is that you’ll probably end up doing the things you worried so much about, you’ll fall in love and out again and learn lessons in every sense of the phrase tough love, you’ll question where you are and what you’re doing, you’ll impulsively book trips and learn that there’s so much more to the world than fretting about fleeting negatives, you’ll spend lengthy stretches of time feeling and being headstrong and other stretches feeling dependent on your Mama/duvet/tea. I think I’ve finally, almost, reached a plateau of realising that, eventually, somehow someday, things will fall into place for me, and then I’ll be able to sit in a freefall of thoughts surmising what would have happened if I didn’t allow myself a bout of freefall.
/existential crisis, over & out.
By the by, I’d love to open up my 100 Stories series to you. If you see a topic that you’ve loved reading, feel free to respond with your own post – I’d love to read them! Simply link them back to me and let me know in the comments and I’ll include yours in a link round-up with my next chapter. I can't wait to read your 'Freefall' stories! ♥
Previous Stories:
- 4. Independence- 3. AM
- 2. The Beauty of Coffee Houses
- 1. Pastel Skyrisers
See also:
- 20 Things About Being In Your 20s- Be Unapologetically You
