Hello everyone and welcome to another Coffee Date with Luna, let’s start.
In many of my previous posts in which I discuss some struggles I’ve been having, I noticed that I often mention my age, the concept of getting older, adulthood etc. I honestly thought that this fear of getting older was something that the patriarchy installed in me as a woman but it was much more than that.
Just to put it out there, I am 24 and paranoid about it.
You want to know why?
Because the world is constantly trying to tell me that my life will start to end around the age of 25. Let me explain!
My surrounding is very traditional when it comes to those “steps” you have to take in life – grow up, school, job, marriage, kids, die. There is this norm that’s imposed on 20-something people when they start getting closer to 30 than they are to 20 and this norm makes the future look like a fucking cage. At least to me.
It’s like you can make decisions, navigate your life freely, pick a career, do what you love and then you become 25+ and that choice is gone. What was done was done, what you studied you studied, you better have a good job and a roof over your head because it’s time to “settle down”. EXCUSE ME?
NO.
For the love of actual God, stop expecting people to fit in with your standards and your rules of what their life should be. Tradition is a thing of the past. We live in a world that is constantly changing and expecting for a 20-something or even a 30 year old to just have her/his life figured out is insane.
I am going to speak from my own perspective. Had I not quit grad school, I would have graduated last year which means that I would be unemployed in the middle of a pandemic. Luckily, I quit, got a job, got a promotion and I am still trying to navigate working on a position that wasn’t really what I went to university for and I never thought I would end up on it. I am still figuring out who I actually want to be and what I want to do in life and this pressure that I need to have it all figured out is making me anxious.
Maybe in two years I decide to go back and graduate. Maybe I will have some sudden desire to start my own business. Maybe I decide to say goodbye to everyone and start backpacking through Europe. Why the fuck shouldn’t I have the option to change my life path completely?
I think that growing older is causing a lot of anxiety for me because I have no one to talk to about this. People around me seem to have a plan, have this all figured out and I often feel like this weirdo that is constantly unhappy, gets easily bored with everything, cannot sit down and make a plan for the future. One of the reasons why I do not like making plans is because it feels like I impose more limits than guidelines on myself when I start planning my future.
For me, not conforming to the norms is the only way to live because conforming would make me lose sight of the things I want and my dreams. It would also kill me in my twenties. I believe that many living in more “traditional” societies understand what I am saying and that we all just need for the world to back off and give us room to grow and create our own futures.
Let me know what you think and have you experienced similar things!
Sending love and positive vibes,
Luna
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