What if we’re all moving too fast? Our twenties are a thunderstorm of contradictions. When we ask for life advice, these are the typical answers we’ll get: Travel the world! Save your money! Invest! Find your passion! Build your career! Buy a house! Don’t buy a house! Don’t panic! Help, I’m panicking. I started the first semester of my second degree at the beginning of this year. I’m 27, for reference. (Yes, I am starting over in my late twenties.) Over semester break, I had an existential breakdown. I started therapy because I realised that crying every other day wasn’t normal. When I returned to uni last week, my nervous system relaxed. I felt relief from the pressure of my hometown’s expected milestones — long-term relationship, house, kids. I want to be a writer, a firefighter, and a Tuscan farmer. Maybe I’ll meet my best friend at 30, move to Norway with them and never look back. Let me be.
Permission to want something different
I’ve grown up in a city that values drawing inside the lines. And as much as I tried, my ink kept bleeding. My drawing was a splotchy mess. But when I moved away from home at 24, the lines expanded to fit me; I transformed. The traditional timeline blurred and the weight fell off my shoulders. Now that I am back in Perth, talking with my old friends about London as if it’s my first love, the same question keeps surfacing. “What’s wrong with Perth?” In truth, nothing. There is nothing wrong with wanting to stay. So why don’t I? Travelling and studying have something in common — the freedom of exploration. Not-knowing is the point. I want my life to be in a constant growth–spurt stage, in the messy. An intentional life of chaos, if you will. That’s where the strength is. And although paradoxical, change is grounding for me.
An unchanging future
Something feels existentially heavy about doing the same thing everyday for the rest of your life. That’s my fear — reaching a point where I think — “now what? Is this all there is?” My favourite part of life is climbing the mountain, not reaching the top. Because once you get there, you can’t go anywhere else. So when I do reach the summit, I have a habit of taking a brief look around and pulling out my paraglider to find the bottom of my next mountain. And the cycle of my becoming keeps repeating. There is something comforting about chapters with a predetermined end date. A two-year visa, a three-year university degree. It’s a structured built-in evolution. So what happens when you find your dream job? What happens if it’s not all it’s cracked up to be? Worse yet, what if it is? Then what?
A quarter-life crisis, or just clarity?
When you’re starting over in your twenties, it can feel like everyone else has their life sorted and you’re just having an internal crisis. I’ve questioned whether I’m scared of commitment, if I’m running away, or whether I’m doing something wrong. But maybe none of that is true. Maybe it’s quite simple — people want what they want. And wanting something that’s different to those around you doesn’t make you crazy. It just makes you human. When I look back on all the decisions I’ve made, they all make sense. Everything happened when it was supposed to. Your intuition won’t tell you where to go, but you’ll often find that it will tell you where not to go. So when you get to your mountain, pay attention to the wind. Specifically, which way it’s pulling you. For some, the summit is still. For others, it’s a violent whirlwind. Let go and let it take you.
Yours,
Kait x
Cover photo by Ekaterina Kobzareva