“To base happiness on a life plan is to exist in a vacuum.Sooner or later, you have to break free.

~ M. A.

The notorious life plan. The one where I expected to be married by twenty-five, working my dream job fresh out of university, all whilst travelling the world and buying a house before the age of thirty. Yes, that life plan. The cause of so much anxiety. The reason I spent the best part of a year feeling like a failure. Everyone always talks about how bad teenagers have it. And they do. But what about the limbo years in between your university days and the rest of your life? The time for making the hard decisions. The countless mistakes along the way. The years where you can take tentative steps in the right direction, or leap into the unknown, and still find yourself stagnant anyway. Growing up, I always thought I’d know who I was or what I wanted by the time I turned 21. And for a moment, months even, I thought I did. But the truth is, I didn’t know then just as I don’t know now very much about life or how it will pan out. And if I take anything away from this pandemic, it’s that nothing is ever meant to be.  One day does not have to define an entire week. Life is a series of tangents, each unexpected and unique. It’s not about figuring out the end of the story.

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