Moving on

Everyone I know has a scary age. My friend Sara’s is 35 because that’s as late as she’s willing to leave it before she has kids. Carine’s was 30 - she couldn’t stand the idea of leaving her twenties and still being single (fortunately she fell in love just a few months before). For me, it has always been 27. And in 3 weeks, I’m there.

When I was about 12, I had my whole life mapped out on a timeline and by 27, I was going to have it all – the loving husband, the beautiful kids, the perfect home and the dream job. Things were on track for a while. At 21, I graduated. At 22, I fell in love. At 23, I found the love nest and at 24, I applied to teaching college.

Then there were a few hiccups. I had my heart broken. I had to move out of my home. And I was turned down for teaching college. After all that, I shut down in a lot of ways and I decided to do the only thing I still had a passion for – writing.

As each year has gone past, and the scary age has loomed closer, I’ve become more and more worried about ticking all those boxes. I might have been pursuing the writing dream but the job didn’t seem to be any closer, and without the guy, how could I have the kids and the family home? Everything seemed to be getting further and further away.

The path I was on took me to London, but as I’m sure a lot of you know, I wasn’t happy there either. I used to devote most of the words in this column to complaining about every aspect of my life down there - the vacuous social life, the over-crowded buses, the pittance of a wage and the astronomical rents. I thought I wanted something more real - a nice flat, a decent salary, a normal job, and my family & friends to be just a quick bus ride away.

So I came home. I got the flat, the job, the salary. And I was ecstatic…for all of a week. Then I realised that wasn’t what I wanted at all.

Something shifted in me in the time that I was away but I wouldn’t let myself feel it. I convinced myself that I was immune to London and all its fake lustre. I was so busy telling myself it was all wrong and I wasn’t cut out for the world of the glossy magazine, that I couldn’t accept there might be life out with Leith, that there might be an alternative plan to the one I’d set out when I was just a kid. But coming home meant I couldn’t deny it anymore. I need something bigger now, something grander, something that no one can ever take away from me. I need to go back to London and do it properly.

So that’s exactly what I’m doing. In a little over a week I head back down. And I have a funny feeling that this time it might be permanent.

It took coming home to realise what I really wanted and it has taken coming home to let go of the things I had put so much value on before.

I look at my friends now who are settling down, having kids, getting married, buying houses (and believe me they’re all doing it) and I know I’m not ready for that yet, or more importantly, that I don’t want it yet.

But while I might not be in any rush for the man, the kids, the house and the white picket fence anymore, it’s comforting to know that I managed to tick at least one box before I hit my scary age - I got the dream job.

Exactly four days before my 27th birthday, I start as Features Writer at a bridal magazine. I can’t quite believe that someone’s actually going to pay me to write.

Now why the bloody hell does it have to be about weddings?!