I've had a draft for an article sitting in my Notes app since January last year, three months before I turned 30. The title was: ‘Shit I learnt in my 20s’. A headline in progress, clearly.
I added my thoughts as and when they popped into my head over the following weeks, normally at wildly inconvenient times (when I was trying to sleep at 1am, or when I was supposed to be concentrating in a meeting). I was determined to write a thoughtful, relatable listicle brimming with sage reflection and sharable snippets of wisdom.
Then the imposter syndrome crept in. ‘What gives me the authority to write about life?’; ‘Who even cares what I have to say?’; ‘Won’t it just be 1,000 words of sanctimonious, self-indulgent drivel?’ I abandoned the note and soon forgot all about it.
Then, the other day, I stumbled across the TikTok trend: ‘Never go through a girl’s Notes app’, and was inspired to read back through all 50+ of my frankly ridiculous notes. I scrolled past the half-baked pitches (‘Book idea: witness crime from window on commute’ – literally just the plot of The Girl On The Train), the drunken ramblings (‘Why do men who wear tight trousers to nightclubs not seem to own socks?’) and the abandoned shopping lists (‘wine, chips, tampons, vegetables’), and then I found it again: ‘Shit I learnt in my 20s’.
With a milestone birthday looming, Laura Hampson reflects on her 20s and why it’s OK if what you planned doesn’t always work out.
Reading through the thoughts I'd jotted down, I realised I didn't have to sound as wise and poetic as an Ancient Greek philosopher. I didn't have to know everything, because at 31, I hardly know anything at all (more on that later). But I do know far more now than I did in my last decade. I bulldozed and blundered my way into my 20s with an overly-dyed head full of dreams, and I left them a somewhat functioning, albeit very tired, adult – some of those dreams realised, some of them quashed, and some of them still waiting in the wings. For all the job interviews I messed up, one-night-stands I regretted, therapy sessions I bailed on, bills I paid too late and broken hearts I thought would never heal, somewhere along the line, I learnt how to be a (questionable) grown up.
It might still be 1,000 words of sanctimonious and self-indulgent drivel, but I hope you'll humour me. Maybe one day I'll know enough to actually sound like an Ancient Greek philosopher. Me and my Notes app will keep you posted on that. Until then, here are the 31 things I've learnt about life at 31 (a much more appropriate headline than the original)…
1. Financial independence is one of the most important thing you can have. It doesn't matter how much you love your partner. Always keep some money separate.
2. Carbs are not the enemy. The real enemy is the people telling you that carbs are the enemy.
3. As you grow in age, so does the realisation that your own ignorance is boundless, as does your willingness to admit it. As you enter your 20s, you’ll think you have a pretty good idea of what the world looks like. By the time you near your 30s, you’ll realise you don’t have a clue. The arrogance and assurance of your youth will be obliterated much like your ability to do tequila shots. Actually, to do any shots at all.
4. You don't owe anyone anything about the way you look. Thinness, prettiness, youthfulness – these are just things a patriarchal society teaches women they must possess in order to be accepted (by men). You owe them nothing.
5. You will have your first real taste of life’s fragility. At some point in your 20s, you'll experience the very real and very bittersweet coexistence of life and death. The people around you will start having babies; the people around you will start dying. Depending on how lucky you are, you will, at some point, be faced with the terrifying and inescapable and humbling nature of mortality. Your parents, guardians, family members — they will start to fade. Watching them fade will be one of the hardest things you will ever have to do, and it will be hard because there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. But it will make you realise that the very value of life lies in its impermanence. You will cherish every waking moment with the fading people. You will become more grateful than you have ever been.
6. Being afraid doesn't mean you aren't brave. There is no such thing as someone who does brave things without being utterly terrified while doing them.
7. Don’t lie about your meter readings. It catches up with you.
8. Similarly, just pay the damn TV license.
9. The patience you have for your loved ones grows astronomically. It will stop seeming so irritating when your mum calls you for the tenth time to ask you how to reset the WiFi, or when your friend turns up late to drinks for the fifth time in a row. The little things that once seemed so important will matter less and less. Really, you'll learn, they just don't matter at all.
10. Accepting a partner’s flaws doesn’t mean accepting disrespect. There is a delicate line to be walked like a tightrope between helping someone grow, and letting them exploit the good in you.
11. Stand up for yourself. Forget what you were taught about being a good, polite, quiet woman. Be unapologetic, get loud, fight back. No one ever told a man to take up less space.
12. You probably aren't going to neatly fold that fitted bed sheet. Just shove it in the drawer until it's time to change your bedding. All the creases get stretched out anyway.
13. You probably aren't going to eat the other half of that avocado. It's going to turn to inedible brown mush in your fridge before inevitably fermenting in your bin. Just use the whole damn avocado.
14. You probably aren't going to ‘stop at one’. Eat another chocolate, order another glass of wine. If life was made to lived by small, fleeting moments of joy it would be insufferably boring (although you'd probably have more money).
15. You probably aren’t going to buy a house at 25, get married by 28, and have three kids and a golden retriever named Lucky by 30. As women, we're sold the idea that ‘having it all’ happens by the time you're 30, and that if you haven't achieved it, you've somehow failed. Your life will now plummet into geriatric misery and everyone else's “successes” will leap out and smack you round the face whenever they're posted on Instagram (this will be often). But you must learn to resist comparison culture as much as possible. You are on a different life trajectory to other people, and there is nothing wrong with that. You are not a failure if you haven't been knocked up by the time you're 30. You are not a failure if you don't own a house during one of the country's biggest economic crises in decades. You're doing just fine. Besides, ‘having it all’ is a myth anyway.
16. Any job that equates your worth to the hours you put in – especially overtime and out-of-hours work – instead of the actual work you're doing, is categorically not worth it. And your manager deserves to be reported to HR.
17. In fact, any job that makes you miserable is categorically not worth it. Find a new job then hand your notice in. You'll regret not doing it sooner.
18. You should probably go to therapy.
19. But you definitely shouldn't use therapy speak, especially not to justify acting like a dick.
20. Acknowledge your privilege. Learn about it: how it benefits you; where it came from; and who suffered so that you could have it. It will make you feel guilty. It should.
21. Saying ‘I don’t know’ isn't admitting defeat. It will make you much better at your job, and it will make you a much nicer person to converse with.
22. No one really cares about your lifestyle choices. You can be a vegan, a boxer, a trombonist, a recreational ket-taker, one of those people who enjoys swimming in Hampstead Ponds. It's only really interesting to you, and if it isn't, it's probably because someone is judging you, which simply makes them an arsehole. Similarly, judging someone else for how they choose to live their life also makes you an arsehole. Whether someone is punching shit in the gym or taking dissociative drugs at a house party, we're all just trying to muddle our way through in any way we can.
23. You will never be happy that you texted your ex.
24. The smartest people rarely shout the loudest. The people you can learn the most from are often the ones who listen quietly in a room full of noise.
25. It's true, you hardly ever regret a workout (sorry).
26. Diet culture will probably destroy your relationship with food (see lesson 2). It will teach you that:
A) Feeling full is wrong.
B) Eating fruit is right (but also wrong, because “sugar”).
C) BMI is an accurate measure of health.
D) Gaining weight and/or being fat is the worst thing you could possibly do/ be.
E) You have to earn or burn off your food through exercise.
F) If you're hungry, just drink some water. You're probably just thirsty.
G) There's such a thing as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food, as if food somehow has moral value.
There are many more, but the point is, unlearning this toxic and unequivocally incorrect messaging will take a very long time, and if it takes a toll on your relationship with yourself and your body, is it any wonder? You are growing up in a society that teaches women to hate their bodies. If you struggle, it is not your fault. But try to remember that the very least you deserve is to feel safe and comfortable in your own body. It's the only lifelong companion you'll probably ever have. Diet culture is the problem; not your body.
27. The most powerful word you'll learn is ‘no’. No to that work task you don't have capacity for; no to that social obligation you really don't want to do; no to that person who doesn't treat you right. Growing older when you're young is all about saying ‘yes’. Growing up is learning when to say ‘no’.
28. If a man tells you about his ‘crazy ex girlfriend’, run. Don't stick around to find out what he did to make her ‘crazy’.
29. You will realise there are very few people more worthy of your time, care and gratitude than your friends. Your friends are the people who will pick you up and piece you back together again when the person you think is the love of your life at age 25 walks out. Your friends are the ones who will tell you they love you at 3am walking home with aching feet and bleary eyes, and mean it fiercely. Your friends are the ones who will tell you when you're being a prick (they're always right). Your friends are the ones who will never ask you to change or conform to some idealised expectation of you. It's these type of relationships that make you near invincible, even when you feel the opposite. They're the ones that need nurturing the most.
30. Failure is a fact. It will happen to you just like it happens to everyone else. It doesn't have to sink you, rather, it can be a powerful learning opportunity.
31. You will probably never know if you're doing it right, or feel like you have it all figured out. But if there's one thing I know, it's that absolutely no one does.
