Twenty nine and feeling fine.

Picture by Raphaël (www.mydeadpony.com)

After a pretty hectic week at work I thought I would reward myself with a visit to the hairdresser. When I arrived I was greeted with a smile, led over to a chair and given a handful of trashy magazines. Excellent. This is exactly where I wanted to be. Sitting down, relaxing & perusing the latest gossip, whilst my hairdresser worked his magic to make me look fabulous. As I was pawing my way through the latest Cosmo, I stumbled across an article that caught my eye. It was entitled 'Why is 27 your life-defining number?' and was basically about the musicians that have died at 27 and the struggle of being in your late twenties. This is something that really resonated with me as I can agree that my late twenties have definitely not been a walk in the park.

I recently celebrated my 29th birthday and in doing so, realised how happy and content I have finally become in my Melbourne life. This however has not always been the case. As I think back over the last few years, I can see how much I have grown, moved forward and embraced a more carefree attitude towards life.

I guess you could say the defining period of change in my twenties began when I was 26 and had just moved back to Adelaide from London. My life in London was fabulous. I had a great job, lovely flat and an awesome bunch of like-minded friends and life seemed to be like one big party. So imagine my dismay when the immigration department changed the conditions of their highly skilled migrant visa and I was forced to leave the country and head back to Australia. The initial plan was to spend a few months back home with my family until I could apply for the visa, then head back to the UK in the new year. The universe however, had other ideas as the Stock Market crash of 2008 gave my savings a beating and I was forced to abandon my application and devise a new plan. I decided that my new plan was to move to Paris. If I could not return to London, then this would be my next best option. I organised a trip back to Europe for February 2009 with the intention of moving to Paris 6 months later. Excellent plan.

Those first 6 months back in Adelaide were challenging to say the least. I felt a real sense of loss. It was the first time I had lived there since 2005 and after living in Sydney and London, I found it incredibly difficult to settle back into the Adelaide way of life. All my old friends were either married or close to it and many had settled down, bought houses and began to start families.  All of a sudden I had gone from feeling ahead of the game in London, being younger than most of my friends, encouraged to travel and live the adventure, to feeling like I was out of place and miles behind where I was supposed to be. A comment made in passing by one of my new colleagues stuck with me and proved to me it wasn't just in my mind.

'How old are you Em?'
'26'
'Hmmm, 26 hey?! You might want to think about settling down, you aren't getting any younger you know.'

So, I began to think that maybe he was right. Maybe I should settle down?! I always imagined that I would get married and have children, but right then?! It seemed so wrong, so not part of the plan. It was not long after when I met a guy who came to Adelaide from interstate for a friend's birthday that I could see my plans actually begin to change.

Like all new relationships this one started out as exciting. It had seemed that I had finally met someone who was the best of both worlds. He wanted to travel, but also wanted to settle down and one day have a family. Perfect, I thought. Maybe this was the guy I had been waiting for?! Maybe this was part of a new plan, so it wasn't Paris, but another 5 letter city starting with P and at the time I could see myself being happy with him so maybe it was for the better. When I traveled back to Europe after 6 months in Australia, I remember being in Paris with two of my closest friends telling them about the new man & how plans for Europe might have to go on hold. I remember my friend looking at me with a look of happiness & support, but also disappointment. What had happened to all your plans?! he had said. Plans change I thought and maybe this time it was for the better.

As time went by and I continued my life in Adelaide something still didn't feel right. I was enjoying the time I got to spend with the new man, but living in two different cities and not being able to see him often was getting difficult. Thinking back to my original plans, I always knew that my time back in Adelaide would be temporary and after 6 months of flitting back and forth I thought it would be a good idea to move to Perth and see if we could make it work. He on the other hand had other ideas. For me it was a simple move, to him it was all too much too fast and we went our separate ways.

Now what?!

After living in Adelaide a year my ideals had been skewed and moving to Paris didn't seem like a realistic option anymore, but I knew I still wasn't ready to stay and settle down in Adelaide. I had pinned my hopes on Perth and now that had also fallen through, I decided I needed to either move back to Sydney or Melbourne. A bigger city with bigger views & less expectations, that is what I needed. So after a trip to America and the toss of a coin I decided to move to Melbourne, one year after returning to Adelaide I was on the move again and it felt like the right thing to do. Having moved to both Sydney and London, I thought this would be a breeze.

Melbourne was perfect.

A big city with just the right blend of European culture and it was all within a 1 hour flight from home. Little did I know this would turn out to be the hardest move of all. Moving to a new city in your early twenties is a completely different experience to doing it in your late twenties or older. I thought it would be like London and I would have no problem meeting new people and making new friends, however it was really just like a bigger version of Adelaide. It took 18 months of hard work, 3 moves and a terrible relationship to finally settle in and love this city. And now?! I can safely say I am the happiest I have ever been. I have a great group of friends, which include a great mix of single ladies in their twenties/thirties, some fun guys and cool couples. I live by myself in a great flat, have a challenging but rewarding job and most importantly for me right now?! I still get to travel!

So, I guess you could say when I finally accepted things for what they were and stopped trying to live up to other peoples and my own unrealistic expectations of myself, I finally became happy. I still have dreams and plans, but now I have faith that if it is meant to be it will happen and in the meantime I will just enjoy the ride. I am in no hurry to jump into a relationship and now when I go back to Adelaide and people question my lifestyle, I just smile with the confidence that I am exactly where I am meant to be.

I'm single, 29 and feeling fine.