This is something I wrote a few months ago before my 35th birthday during a period of deep reflection. I have since crossed the bridge into 35 and am compiling my thoughts along the way. I hope you enjoy the journey with me.
In a few months I turn 35. This is the reality I am currently facing. A few months until I hit a milestone that seems to carry more weight than any other age milestones before. 21 came and went without too much of an existential crisis. 30 appeared and left me relatively unscathed. At 30 it was still OK to not have my life figured out. It wasn’t just OK, for many including myself, it was considered a trailblazing way to break conventional norms. Not only was it a political statement to the world of expectation that we find ourselves in, it was also incredibly seductive. A lifestyle dedicated to floating around like a bohemian nomad moving from place to place, one relationship to the next and trying out new careers every other month. It was an opportunity to become passionately involved with a certain political issue before quickly dropping it for the next. A time to travel from place to place morphing into the surroundings, coming back ‘worldly’ and discussing issues from places far away as if we are advocates for them. It was new, it was exciting and it felt rebellious. I worshipped this way of being throughout my 20’s and well into my 30’s.
However, as I approach 35 this way of living, that I have cherished for so long, no longer feels disruptive or seductive. It feels different. Something I wasn't expecting and something that I have tricked myself into believing wouldn’t find me. It suddenly feels lacking.
For years I have watched those around me get married, have children, buy homes, commit to careers and ‘adult’ in the conventional sense of the word. I told myself this wasn’t for me. At times I actually felt sorry for them. Trapped by responsibility whilst I was freely available to do whatever I liked, when I liked. This is not to say I haven’t been caught off guard at times by some of the milestones that solidify you as a worthy adult. I have gone through the list and ticked off certain boxes, engaged twice, married once and divorce before I was 30. I have had high paying jobs at different points in my life and most recently I dipped my toes into the Start-up world in plant-based innovation. I have been seduced not only by my carefree lifestyle but also by validating myself by ticking off some of these boxes.
Captain hindsight is always a treat and when I dance with him I realise I didn’t tick off these boxes because they necessarily felt right or aligned for me, I did them because society told me I was at a point where I should do them and it felt like the only way to validate my worth as an adult was to do them. Each time as I abandoned myself for this idea of what I ‘should’ do I had a deep inner knowing that it wouldn't work out. I was already one foot in and one foot out before the ink had dried on my signature. I didn’t know how to do ‘conventional’ and I truly believed I didn’t want to. I found refuge in the ideas that told me to go off, live, explore and find myself. Basically, I kept running.
I ran and ran and continued to run whilst those around me grounded themselves in life. I kept my options open whilst others committed to people, locations and goals. I thought they were trapped however I can’t help but think some of these things I saw as ‘trappings’ might actually be fulfilling. The very things I have spent my life avoiding are suddenly the only things that I want. Security, grounding, safety, family, structure, a home. I have traded these things for a carefree ‘bohemian’ life but is it really that carefree? Now, as I approach the milestone of 35, I find my lack of security and safety stressful. Carefree is no longer carefree when you feel like you are not only being left behind but like you have no way to catch up. Too tired to keep reinventing myself I crave the stability that comes from being grounded not only my environment, but also in who I am as a person.
I was speaking with a friend the other day about how I am feeling about turning 35. She is also a 1988 baby turning 35 this year and has led a similar lifestyle to my own, in fact, many of the people I consider close friends have all led similar lives. I feel like I have been collecting these friends along my travels. Like me they weren’t tied down to any fixed place, person or careers which allowed our friendships to blossom in different countries at different times. Most of these friendships are tied by the fact that we can meet each other foreign locations, at any time of the year, go years without seeing each other and have a deep understanding of each other's lifestyles. Chatting with this friend we were reflecting on why so many of our millennial friends are finding themselves in a similar situation. One thing that we both agreed has played a huge role in our own journeys has been the internet.
The arrival of the internet allowed millennials to pioneer what it means to live a nomadic life. With the internet at our fingertips other countries and cultures suddenly became accessible. Thanks to social media platforms like facebook and email many of our parents didn’t feel too disconnected from us and saw the opportunities available to us that weren’t available to them. We were often encouraged by our parents on our adventures to ‘find ourselves’, at least this is what happened for me.
I was 21 when I nervously declared to my parents that I was dropping out of university and moving to Thailand. I had recently returned from a backpacking trip around South East Asia and the taste I had for travel and adventure could not be satisfied by my university degree in International Business. This choice of degree, like many things in my life prior to this moment and in years to come, came from my desire to please others before myself. I had no interest in International Business, I wanted to study Journalism or Psychology, yet my choice to study International Business steamed from my desire to please my father who had also studied International Business. Looking back now it makes sense why this degree felt so unfulilling. It was my attempt to fulfil someone else's dream ahead of my own, sadly something that is quite familiar to me. With an unfufilling degree and a taste for exploration I felt like the only option available to me was to leave. Now, knowing what I do, I would probably have taken a few months out and changed my degree to something I was genuinely interested in but at the time I didn’t know how to put my needs first. I didn’t know that it was OK to ask for what I needed and to commit to my own path. I also didn’t know how to let people down in a way that served me. All I knew how to do was to avoid my problems. What I did know was to run away which is exactly what I did.
Instead of being met with resistance by my parents or the many reasons why I shouldn't, they agreed to let me do it. To this day I am still not 100% sure why my parents accepted this choice and to be honest I haven’t ever asked them. Whilst I know they wished they had had the opportunity to travel when they were younger and I also think they knew that there was no stopping me. I had spent my life battling my desire to live and think differently with my need to be validated by the approval of others. Staying meant approval, leaving meant scratching the curiosity that said there was another way to live. Up until this point I had lived my life for approval, they saw this long before I did which is why I think they let me go.
So at 21 years old I picked up my life and moved to Thailand, not that I had much of a life to pick up, just a suitcase, a somewhat concerning back balance and a longing for something different. I had no idea how I was going to get a job, make money or how I was going to legally do any of this in a country I only had a tourist visa for. All I knew was that I wouldn’t be happy unless I tried. It became less of a choice and more of a knowing that led me to join countless millennials making similar pilgrimages across the world. Looking back now I think we were the first wave of digital nomads yet we were nothing like the digital nomads of today. We had no plans, no money and no idea how we would make money. What we did have was a curiosity that couldn’t be ignored and a desire that couldn’t be satisfied by following the path expected of us. We really set out blind, with no social media accounts showing us what to do. All we had was the beginning of facebook or the end of myspace depending on when you ventured and the audacity needed to make it up as we went along.
This isn’t the case for digital nomads of today. They know how to make money online and how to invest. They are business owners who have learnt to capitalise on their lifestyles by becoming influencers, coaches, Ecommerce owners, consultants and content creators. When I first started travelling the only content I created was the occasional facebook update letting everyone know I was alive followed by drunken pics of me at a full moon party. Pictures I now cringe over when facebook likes to share a memory with me. We didn’t have a generation before us who had paved the way, the internet was still so new, we were the ones paving the way. We couldn’t learn from the mistakes of those before us, we were learning and making the mistakes as we went along. The concept of security and long term plans were the furthest thing from our minds. We were concerned about finding the cheapest accommodation possible, jobs that paid with a free room and food or cash in hand. Whilst this still appeals to certain travellers most digital nomads today want their creature comforts but in a location removed from the one they grew up in. They, who am I kidding I also now belong in this category, want our matcha lattes, acai bowls and avocado on toast but with a sprinkle of culture. We want to be able to explore temples, markets and beaches knowing that we will be ending our evening in a trendy restaurant where we can get our organic vegan buddha bowls. The dream of moving from place to place and exploring new lands is still seductive, however doing it without money isn’t. The dream now is that you do it whilst making money, something I had no idea how to do when I started out. Whilst this has instilled a huge amount of resilience within me, as well as an incredible ability to problem solve, it has left me making up life minute by minute. I didn’t have the option of creating long term goals, well atleast I didn’t think I did. I spent my entire 20’s only ever placing one foot in front of the other, focusing on survival instead of planning for the future. A future my spiritual self told me didn’t exist outside of the present moment. A mantra, all you have is the present moment, that has allowed for some truly magical moments but also one that has meant I haven’t prepared for a future. A future that, at almost 35, feels like it has arrived by slapping the expectations of life in my face.
Ironically, despite being almost 35, I still feel like that same 20 something year old trying to figure out how to make it from one day to the next. Instead of a larger goal that would allow me to make steps towards something greater I am still focused on how to survive moment by moment and this has worked for me until now. Now, I don’t want moment by moment. I want momentum towards something bigger. Those tick boxes that I have spent so long avoiding I suddenly long for. Children, a home, an established career, decorating, building a retirement fund. When I look at my friends and family standing firm in this space of adulthood I realise that in so many ways I still feel like a teenager trying to figure it all out. I don’t even have a fund for my first home let alone my retirement. I have been focused on the here and now tricking myself into thinking the future wouldn’t arrive until I was ready for it. Whilst I was avoiding the future and living for the present I forgot that one day the future would arrive. Despite my best efforts to avoid it, it is here. One day, without warning, I would find myself waking up wishing I was nurturing my retirement fund and redecorating my first home. This day has arrived. This morning I woke up, four months before my 35th birthday, consumed by the idea that I am not where I thought I would be. For the first time in a long time I allowed the feeling of lack to get in and now I have given it full reign to take me on a journey of self reflection.
The thing about turning 35, which makes it feel more significant than any other birthday, is that I did have dreams for what I wanted 35 to look like. I have spent countless hours daydreaming about what the future me would be doing at this stage of life and who I would be doing it with. I daydreamed about the clothes I would wear, the environment I would live in, the career I would be pursuing and the children that would be running around me. I daydreamed about how I would spend my days and the financial freedom I would have because of all of the smart choices I had made. I didn’t just daydream about it occasionally, I daydreamed about it all the time. My daydreaming was influenced by society, family and movies. I would take snippets of the world around me and create a picture in my mind of where I would be. I visualised and I fantasised creating different realities in my own mind. However in my daydreaming I forgot one important aspect to making it happen, an unwavering commitment to my own dreams. Too focused on making the dreams of others come true or abandoning myself for whatever relationship I found myself in I forgot to stay in my own lane. I jumped out of my lane and into someone else's more times than I can count. Whilst I was lane jumping I was also saying goodbye to the version of 35 that I had created in my mind, a 35 so beautiful that I cannot help but feel crushed that it isn’t my reality.
The version of 35 I spent countless hours creating in my mind lived in a beautiful cabin in nature, surrounded by trees and freshwater. An environment that morphed with the seasons along with our large organic vegetable garden as we are self-sufficient homesteaders. I have built this home with a supportive, loving, homesteading, manbunned partner who shares my vision for slow living. Me a writer, him a creative we spend our days in nature, exploring local farmers markets and drinking matcha from local coffee shops. We have a few children running around us who have become our greatest teachers. I never tire of hearing the word mum called a thousand times a day. We are financially comfortable and our decisions are able to come from choice, not survival. We champion causes we believed in and teach our children how to live life by their design. This was the 35 my 30 year old and 20 year old self dreamed of having. A vision for what 35 looked like and admittedly my almost 35 year old self still holds the same dream, it’s just the reality that hasn’t quite matched up.
The reality is that at almost 35 I am renting a room off my incredibly generous friend for only £450 a month, although the last few months, since liquidating my company, I have paid £0 in rent. I am forever grateful for this safe haven she has provided me with during what has felt like the most difficult period of my life yet it is still her home, not mine. Her things and taste. I have always struggled putting my stamp on places where I rent a room despite the people I rent off telling me time and time again that it is my home too, it never feels that way. I always feel like a guest in someone else's home so I guess at almost 35 you could say I still feel like a guest in somebody else's home. We aren’t quite immersed in nature but we are close to the sea, a small comfort as it feels vast, wild and unpredictable.
I met the loving partner, man bun and all and he has been a constant for the past 2 years. To make it dreamer we met in person instead of on an app. I take my hat off to anyone who has been successful with online dating. For me it was a battle field of ghosting and disappointment which only seemed to fuel my insecurities. After several extremely unsuccessful dating attempts I took myself off all dating apps and decided to just live my life without the pressure of meeting someone as nobody seemed to know how you actually met anyone anymore if it wasn’t through an app or if you weren’t set up through friends. It was during this time that Ben quite literally walked into my life. I was sitting in a local coffee shop with the friend I live with when he just walked in and charmed the room. I remember instantly being attracted to his energy which I later used as a pick up line when I sent him an instagram DM. He is honestly one of the most delicious people I have ever met. Thoughtful, charming and genuinely the kindest person I have ever known. He is as obsessed with food as I am and his cooking is even better than mine, something I struggled with initially. He challenges me in the best way possible and is always in my corner regardless of the situation. He is so good that in recent months I have found myself trying to sabotage our relationship. Since everything else seemed to be falling to pieces around me I have subconsciously been trying to throw him and our relationship into the same category. Thankfully he has seen past my attempts and for some reason is still here, thank god.
Kids, well they haven’t arrived yet but my desire for them grows stronger everyday. I have longed to be a mother since I can remember. I can easily fall into nurturing roles within relationships as the mother instinct within me is so strong. I have spent hours planning my future children’s names, daydreaming about the day they call me Mum. There are many reasons why it hasn’t happened yet with the biggest one being I haven’t allowed it. I have been living by a strict set of self prescribed rules about where I need to be financially before I give myself permission to become a mother. Up until now it hasn’t been the right time or the right relationship or the right financial situation. Now, with Ben, it is the right person and at 35 it is the right time; however in my mind I am still not financially ready to support a child. Whether this is true or not is up for discussion but it doesn’t change the fact that I know I am withholding myself, from the very thing I want, based on an idea of where I ‘should’ be. A dangerous place to position yourself because you will always find reasons to justify what ‘should be’ instead of ‘what is’ and ultimately all children need initially is love right?
My looming age of 35 is also a constant reminder that my biological clock is ticking. As a woman I find this to be one of the most irritating parts of growing older. The constant enquiries into my fertility and endless questions around having children. The assumptions that just because I do not have them yet that I don’t want them or that I cannot have them. It is also a reminder that with any children I do have I will now be considering a geriatric mother. Ironic as I still feel like a child myself. I crave a sense of safety and security for my future children which I myself do not yet have. I constantly move back and forth between the idea of having them and allowing everything to figure itself out or creating that security first telling myself that is the only way I can be a present loving mother. A dance or perhaps a battle between two ideas. My parents didn’t have financial security when we were children and I had a truly magical childhood. This idea and these rules that I have placed upon myself are denying me the very thing I want, something I am beginning to see as a pattern in my life. The tendency to constantly deny myself instead of allowing myself to receive or to only allow myself to receive once it has been earned. Something I am sure I can trace back to spending the majority of my life being a ‘good girl’, something I am still very much guilty of. So whilst children aren’t yet here they are very much wanted.
As for my career, well, I am not a writer and I am not not a writer. I have written 6 incomplete books over the past 7 years, all meticulously saved on my laptop having only been read by me. I have sabotaged each one along the way and distracted myself with humanitarian work, entrepreneurship, start-up’s, coaching, consultancy work and product development. Each distraction lasts a while until the longing to write returns growing a little louder each time. Ever since I was a child I have envisioned myself a writer. Every movie I cherish, every TV show I love all share one thing, somewhere in the story is a writer. It has become somewhat comical how attracted I am to stories about writers, they follow me everywhere and despite the not so subtle hints from the universe I still resist. Just like I do with having children. I cling on for dear life, resisting the very things I want and to be quite honest at almost 35 I am tired of myself. What will happen if I just let go? For god sakes Millee, just let go. So here I am 4 months away from my 35th Birthday attempting to let go by writing my 7th book. There is something magical about the number 7 for me and as I am about to enter into another 7 year cycle it all feels rather timely.
That just leaves financial stability. Right now I am currently going through a voluntary liquidation for a business I have poured all of my savings and the last 3 years of my life into. A start-up started by three best friends and ending with just me. A journey that I am still processing and will no doubt be processing for sometime. Whilst I have no debts to my name, the amount of money I have saved is barely enough to release me from any financial stress or worry. In my attempt to become financially literate over the last two years I have ended up with a vanguard SNP500 account which has only made me 1.3% interest and a crypto account which has lost more money than it has made. I had 33% of shares in a company that at one point was valued at £2.5m yet now those shares are worth nothing. My savings were spent trying to make those shares valuable and the irony of the whole thing is that those shares were not attached to any dream of my own. They were attached to the dreams and ambitions of others. Just like I have done so many times before I abandoned myself to make somebody else's dreams a reality which is why, in hindsight, it is no surprise that it didn’t work out. I have enough money to buy the organic produce and matcha lattes I like but not enough for a house deposit. Every time I inch closer to what I consider financial stability I am reminded, by the world around me, that the chances of me entering the property ladder are slim to none. Instead of pushing forwards towards the larger financial goal I think fuck it and buy myself two matcha latte’s that day. Financially I feel like an infant.
I have an exercise that I get my new coaching clients to do before we work together. It is an exercise where they rate several areas of their life based on where they currently feel they are. It acts as a good indicator for us to identify what areas we want to improve on, where we are out of balance and as a scale for us to reflect upon during and after our time together. I get them to rate how they currently feel in eight areas of their life from 1-10. 1 being extremely unfulfilled, 10 being extremely fulfilled. I haven’t done this exercise in a while, probably because avoidance is easier than acceptance and as I approach the milestone of 35 it feels more important than ever to be radically honest with myself. I ask my clients to be vulnerable knowing that this is the secret to unlocking courage yet here I am hiding away out of fear of being seen.
Here goes.
Career - 2
Currently not feeling fulfilled by my career choices. Realising I am good at making other people's dreams come true yet I neglect my own dreams. Waking up each day lacking a sense of direction or meaningful contribution. Desperate to nurture and grow a project I am passionate about.
Relationships: Intimate - 7
In a safe and loving relationship with a wonderful man who shows up for himself, for me and for our relationships each and everyday. Leaning into open communication and expressing my wants and needs. Finding myself trying to sabotage out of self protection.
Friends - 4
I have had three friendship break ups in the past 2 years which have left a large hole. I know that as a result of these breakups I have closed off my heart and it is difficult for me to let people in. These were key relationships in my life and the grief of losing them is still something I am processing. Before I had a community around me that felt nourishing yet I now find myself with a scattered selection of close friends that all live in different locations. The friendships I have are fulfilling and nourishing yet I am lacking community.
Family - 4
All of my family live on the other side of the world, in Australia and New Zealand and I miss them terribly. I miss watching my niece and 3 nephews grow up. I miss seeing my siblings become parents and I miss my Mum’s hugs and the unsolicited advice from my Dad. I spent most of my life becoming my own person but I am beginning to realise I am the most me when I am with them.
Finances - 3
I have a small amount of savings yet I feel like a financial infant with no idea how to generate security. I mean how do you turn money into more money? People around me seem to be able to do it effortlessly or at least that's what their instagram accounts tell me. I feel like a failure using all of my savings to come back to the UK and pour into a business which liquidated. Everytime I think about money I feel stunted and it is hard not to compare myself to everyone around me.
Health - 8
One area I can happily say I have remained consistently committed to. After years of restriction from orthorexia, veganism, fruitarianism, oil free/salt free/gluten free (all the frees) to now having an intuitive balanced relationship with food I feel physically better than ever. I work out consistency, love cooking and have a genuine interest in what I am putting in my body.
Mental Health - 4
My mental health hasn’t been great and this is something I am only recently acknowledging. I am feeling unfulfilled and feel like I am wishing my days away. I am lacking motivation and that little voice inside my head, I call her Janice, keeps telling me that I am a failure. I have the ‘tools’ to be able to improve my mental state yet I find myself abandoning them in favour of destructive thoughts. Janice is currently living rent free and running the show.
Environment - 5
I want a home. A home of my own. Somewhere I can decorate, buy furniture for and fight with Ben over paint colours. I want somewhere I feel safe to truly express myself and not just a visitor in someone else's home. I want somewhere I can raise a family and make memories.
Things hit differently when you write them down. In my head I know above but they feel distant and removed until I see it written down in front of me. The power of words will never fail to amaze me. Honest through words is extremely vulnerable and even just pouring out the above I am noticing an internal shift. Less judgement and more compassion towards myself. Janice judges and she does so on repeat day in and day out yet really feeling into these words and writing them down Janice’s voice becomes more faint as my voice of compassion becomes stronger. If this isn’t my reminder to start journaling each day again then I don’t know what is. I have been avoiding my morning journaling and instead I have been religiously opening my phone distracting myself with useless reels on instagram.
Whilst none of the above is necessarily news to me, writing it down and getting it out means accepting it as truth and as someone who is constantly wanting to dive into the depths of my own being, accepting what is true means action towards what I want. I can no longer avoid my truth. It is beating inside me like a drum and as I near 35 the beat is getting louder and louder. No amount of scrolling, numbing or indulging is going to silence the dissatisfaction it is highlighting. It has been so easy for me to abandon myself in the process of life, putting the wants and needs of others ahead of myself. Something I have been trying to unpick for a number of years and something I see countless women doing. Sacrificing our wants and needs for the wants and needs of others. But easy doesn’t make it right. The drum beating inside me is reminding me that there is something more to life than being of service to everyone and everyone.
As a woman I have been taught to keep myself small and not take up too much space. To be just enough without ever being too much. To walk on eggshells so I don’t offend. To portray a version of myself that is acceptable to the world around me. To be pretty enough so that I don’t cause jealousy, successful enough so that I am not a threat, assertive enough without being emasculating, thin enough so that I am socially acceptable, silent enough so that I don’t disrupt and small enough so that I can go unseen. I have spent my life being just enough of what everyone else wants me to be without ever really being too much of anything.
Just successful enough, just pretty enough, just thin enough, just educated enough, just agreeable enough, just polite enough. I have accepted this idea of just enough without ever letting myself spill over into too much of anything. With discipline I have caged, capped and kept myself contained so that I could never be seen as too much. It has been a way for me to self protect against a society that is quick to label women as too much. Too successful, too thin, too rich, top opinionated, too slutty, too proud, too pretty. However it is this idea of just enough that has left me feeling a sense of self abandonment, a sense of lacking, a sense of longing leaving me to ask the question, is there really such a thing as being too much?