24 on the 24th: An Unexpected Victory

This time tomorrow I will be 24. I love my birthday: aside from Christmas and Shrove Tuesday, it is my favourite day of the year. Plus some small part of me is pleased by the fact I turn 24 on the 24th of the month. So far so good right?

Everything was fine until I realised that I will be well into my twenties, 2 years out of uni and my life doesn't look anything like I thought it would. This filled me with an overwhelming sense of anxiety and disappointment which, honestly, I have really struggled to shift. The funny thing is if you were to ask me exactly what I was expecting life to look like for me, I wouldn't be able to tell you. I could maybe list some rudimentary materialistic things I expected to have/be closer to, but I couldn't paint a detailed picture of an alternative me if I tried.

I expected:
- to be living away from home, saving for a place of my own.
- to be working full time in a job with prospects for progression/already be progressing.
- to be in a relationship

I am:
- living back at home with the parents, on wages that don't allow for saving
- working part time in a job without much prospect of progression.
- single

As I look at these two lists, I realise that this time a year ago I was, on paper, much closer to my expectations of myself. I had moved out of the parents' house, I was living in a city I called "mine." I was working full time, and though I wasn't managing to save, I was still earning and living off my own money. This time a year ago I was in a relationship that made me the happiest girl alive. I had not long got my new car, and was feeling more like "a real adult." Pondering this makes me sad and acutely aware of the fact that on paper, it looks like I've taken a step backwards (or 3).

But, what I don't tell everyone (well I guess now I am telling cyberspace), and what a lot of people didn't see, were the realities of my "great on paper," life. I was living away from home, but struggling to cook/eat properly and generally look after myself. It was hidden well by my job; because I always had lunch of some kind, people weren't to know I rarely ate dinner, or sometimes even breakfast escaped me. My housemate probably thought I was some sort of weird hermit since I would sometimes go for days without seeing him. Money was always an issue; I was more or less living from pay-day to pay-day and had more or less got to a point where I stopped caring (depression does that to a person). The relationship I was in had cracks, which I failed to see until it was too late; lack of communication being the main factor there. I had become so unhappy in my job that it had turned me into someone I really disliked; think judgemental/stressy/snappy/catty and not to mention a nervous wreck. I was determined to hold on to my independence because in my mind admitting I needed real help meant admitting I was failing. It meant I was unable to be a "real adult," despite what my driving license and passport say.

Fast forward to November/December and I was still refusing to admit that something needed to change. I was not getting any better, in fact, I was miserable. My anxiety had improved and the situation at work had got to a point where I could turn up, but I was still desperate to leave. After spending 2 glorious weeks off at Christmas with my family, I realised I had to do something. I made a game plan to move back home in April the following year: I'd save a few months wages & then take some time out. I don't know what it was but something snapped: I handed in my notice as soon as I got back in the new year and moved home at the beginning of February.

Today, I am sat in my pjs, alternately crying, typing and drinking tea. It turns out some of this is still pretty raw because I haven't revisited it since I've been back in my little home town. But you know what? I am happier. I am living at home with the parents, so the stress of having to plan/shop/buy meals is gone. I have my support network in the next room, and my part time job is great. I love not being behind a desk and just by the nature of what I do I physically can't take work home with me. I have time to see my close friends and finally feel like I am beginning to heal. I am discovering something I am good at and in being single I'm learning the importance of being who I need, instead of trying to be what others want.

So when I turn 24 tomorrow, I will celebrate and dance, and be irritatingly, nauseatingly happy, because for one of the first times in my life, I have become exactly what I needed for myself. In my mind that is far more important than any expectations or check-list of achievements, so I am totally a-okay (or learning to be) with how my life looks because I STILL HAVE ONE.

The Return

I had visualised that coming back to my blog, hitting the keyboard would be far easier than it has been. So far there have been 3 drafts of this post; each and every one deleted and completely rewritten. It isn't that I don't know what to say, it's that I don't know how exactly to say it. Its entirely likely I am overthinking the entire process... After all one of the best pieces of advice I've been given is to get it all down on paper because it is easier to work with something than nothing. So here goes.

2016 finished with me defining it as a steaming pile of crap (eloquently put I know). I had been stuck in a situation where I was constantly undermined, and when I tried to speak out was merely told to "toughen up." It made me feel worthless, incompetent and useless. I was beginning most of my days by wondering what they'd find to call me out on this time, which rules they had introduced that I hadn't been adhering to. I was ending my days exhausted, convinced I was useless and incapable of the language I had spent so long learning. I stopped writing. I stopped believing I had anything useful or relevant to contribute. I told people it was the exhaustion, and to a certain degree it was. But truthfully? I felt so miserably inadequate that I felt nobody would want to hear my story anyway.

I stopped horse riding; admittedly that had been a long time before 2016, but in the past that was my refuge. The horse didn't care how good/bad ugly you felt, the instructor didn't give a shit if you'd failed your last essay. It was myself and the animal; learning to read each other and bond by instinct. For those hours I could be sweaty as hell, covered in mud, or drenched through from the rain, but it didn't matter. Because in that moment all that mattered was me and the horse. Last year? I didn't have my refuge. I didn't have the fitness or the financial stability to seek it either. I was stuck stewing in my inadequacies, and drowning in a situation that was slowly but surely turning me into a toxic, bitchy version of myself.

Shortly before Christmas, my relationship ended out of the blue. I don't think I'd been able to pinpoint a single moment so exactly before then, but I remember when I felt my heart break. I felt the truth wind me, and started to drown in the grief of knowing that I'd be the only one mourning. After all, who mourns someone who is still breathing, and loving and functioning? That is when the grief became my private loss; because while I knew she'd still be living, her happiness would no longer involve me. That is a bitter pill to swallow as anyone knows. But I still felt ridiculous mourning the loss of a person who was lost only to me.

Slowly everything has started to look up; 2017 has been an opportunity for a fresh start. I am leaving Norfolk behind and coming home to the hills of Sussex where I grew up. I am apprehensive because I don't have a "plan," and I don't know what this year will be for me. But I began by proving to myself that I am a survivor and I plan to carry on not just by showing I can survive, but flourish.