Twenties are Hard...

This post is aimed for all you graduates who have just finished your last year in education and feeling more than disheartened about the world.

So they say being young is the best days of your life. Unfortunately you don't realise it until the harsh realities of life begin to kick in. I grew up in a very nice village, completely spoiled and totally stimulated. I went to an incredible primary school, where I was always noted for my outgoing personality and creativity. I got into a prestige grammar school (by the skin of my teeth) and was worked to the bone. I always achieved well in academia, as well as being a prefect through school, always running events, conferences, I was really good at things!!! Teachers and Parents always told me I could be whatever I wanted to be, and that I was going to make something great out of my life! I probably peaked when I ran with the Olympic torch in which I won a competition for being a future flame, aka someone who's going to be somebody in the future!

Then I went to university.

Life starts to get a little bit more real, suddenly the fantasy of all your dream jobs is filtered down into realistic jobs. Achieving good grades becomes a minimum instead of an achievement. Suddenly, instead of being top of your class at something, you're merely one of two hundred others that are good at what you're good at, and in some cases better. After 7 years of stress, you just do not have the will to revise any longer, for another year of academia that no one will remember you for. University is hard work. I have wanted to drop out every single year, and luckily I ran out of time and completed the degree before I has finished procrastinating about dropping out. And after 3 years of intense pressure and £50,000 of debt, Im just going to be another girl out of thousands with an undergrad degree. All of this hard work, not to be extraordinary, but to fit the standard. And after all the years of ambition, and sacking off friends to study hard and get to where I want....I now work in retail, no ambition and incredibly low mental wellbeing.

What do I have to look forward to? Im now at that awkward age where I can't afford to rent, and Im too old to deal with the regulations and lack of privacy of living in my parents house. I've been through a rocky few teenage years, which has left me with anxiety and lack of optimism to do anything worthwhile anyway. All the adults I used to look up to, have turned out to be as rubbish at life as I am. Its really no wonder people my age feel the need to get wasted all the time, and cling on to their youth in any way they can, such as travelling and partying etc.

 Its a horrible age, in which you can't settle, in fear of wasting your life too young, so you remain in limbo about yourself, your career, your relationships. All I've ever done is look for the one, and now Im panicking that I'm too young to have been in so many long relationships and I should be enjoying single life, and my friends and other independent activities. I've been in two major relationships, and the last one I was so convinced he was the one, Im exhausted at the thought of going through it all over again. I'm not sure I can go through another break up and I probably have many ahead of me!!

On top of that, should I even be worrying about my career? Most people have several in their life time anyway. Even stupid things like, I'd happily get covered in tattoos, but obviously its not a fantastic idea in the long term since my career path isn't set as of yet. But in contradiction to this, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow so should live how I want to live instead of constantly holding out for a future which realistically may never come? At what point do you stop striving for the future, when thats all Ive done for the first 20 years of my life, and start to just embrace the present? I could study further and get a high paying job that I may not even enjoy just so I can impress others and make money? Or I could find a job I love for a low wage, in which I can be my crazy pink haired self and just start enjoying the little things in life. But that would be a total waste of my education right?

All in all, I feel like your childhood is a decade of fantasy and dreams. Your twenties are the come down in which you realise perhaps you're not going to be the next Britney spears, but equally your twenties are the only time you can go wild before you're forced to settle financially so should we all be travelling the world and seizing the day instead of worrying about our career paths?

The only good thing that has come of my twenties is my friendships. My friends are the only thing that have gotten better over time, despite distance and circumstance they have only grown stronger, and I feel like we all support one another going through this time of change. Some of my friends I have experienced all stages of life so far with, and I love watching them grow and develop from young girls dancing at the discos to young women passing out in the campus bar. I am so blessed to have such amazingly supportive and beautiful friends in my life, and for that I cannot thank time enough...

So young graduates, do not feel disheartened... 20's are hard and its ok.