Staring Out Of Windows pt 1.

Drama queen? Of course not

If I were to be in a job interview and asked my strengths and weaknesses then my answer would be: staring out of windows and vaguely yearning. This would be my answer to both questions, and I almost certainly wouldn't get the job. If I was framing it as a strength then I'd talk about how my vivid imagination means that I can happily amuse myself for hours, watching the world go by and imagining what my life would be like as a cowgirl. Or perhaps as a marine biologist. I'm undecided. As a weakness, I would say that imagining the many lives I might have lived has left me with an unshakeable sense of yearning. Luckily I've been assured that this is quite normal for your mid/late twenties, and is actually par for the course. And I think that there probably is some truth to that; when I speak to my friends it doesn't help that we all seem to be in different places with our lives. I have friends that still live at home, friends that are married, friends buying their own houses, and friends with babies. It's wild. I feel like I'm sat somewhere in the middle, I've moved out of my mother's house, but there seems to be an ongoing threat that I might one day have to move back there should other plans not work out. Whilst I have a job, it's not where I see myself in five years time. And I can't help but feel like things are a bit stagnant. This, I've been reassured many times, is also normal.

Whilst the mid-twenties funk does seem to be generally accepted as something everyone goes through, I quickly decided that it wasn't actually my vibe. I was having a little cry in the shower (I haven't been brave enough to ask whether that's also a normal part of your twenties; I'm too scared to hear the answer), and had an epiphany. Something had to change. I think the epiphany was more that something could change. I was the master of my fate, captain of my destiny yada yada. Within the next ten minutes I'd decided to quit my job and go travelling. I got out of the shower feeling considerably more chipper than when I got in (and also a little pruney), but I felt like I was back in control of a life that had been running away from me slightly.

The view from where we stayed in the Peaks

When I first tentatively mentioned this plan to people I was met with lots of support. I soft-launched it to my mother first with a very tentative: maybe I'll find a job overseas next (I thought the promise of a job would assuage her worries and would go down better than if I told her I was heading off to Bali to "find myself"). To my shock she immediately agreed that was a great idea and I should do whatever made me happy. I had one parent in the bag, now time for the next. My father was slightly less enthusiastic, he told me to go for it, but reminded me that 'you can't run away from being a functioning adult forever'. Well the joke is on him because I'm actually very good at running. Whilst I did understand his point, I also decided it would probably be best to ignore it. That would be a problem for another day.

My plans to flee to the other side of the world were met with the most support from my friends. This was to be expected, not only had they been listening to me complain about my pitiful life, how much I didn't like my job, how badly I wanted to be a cowgirl etc, but I think it's very easy for friends to cheer on your slightly rogue plans as it means they can live vicariously through you. They're quick to tell you to book the tickets purely because there's no skin in the game for them. I presume that they want me to thrive, but if I do fly off to Australia and come back after two weeks because I hate it, they haven't really lost anything; it's me that has the shame of returning home with my tail between my legs, minus the cost of a flight to the other side of the world. So I was met with support all-around in the friend department. In fact, the only person who wasn't keen on my plans was my sister, but that was only because I offhandedly mentioned that I might like to go to Canada and apparently that's where she's always wanted to go. Clearly we can't both visit Canada, that would be madness. Instead whoever books their flights there first gets first dibs. Sisters, eh?

My favourite window view

So that's where I'm at currently. I still spend lots of time staring out of windows, but with a slightly more optimistic outlook. April is when the lease on my flat runs out, so that's when I need to set my plan into motion (please don't ask me what the plan is, it makes me nervous thinking about it, mainly because it doesn't exist). I feel a heady mix of both fear and excitement when I think about just how big the world is, but I will not be comparing it to an oyster because I think seafood is gross. The next step is to start thinking about where I want to go, the current short answer being: everywhere. In order to narrow this down a bit I'll have to do something thinking - best achieved of course whilst staring out a window.