Written by Stephanie Rathbone
My mid 20 journey so far has been somewhat eventful to say the least...
Where to begin?
Let’s begin with ‘The Dream’. The place I thought I was going to be in my mid-20s.
15 year old me had a vision of travel, becoming bilingual, having the most awesome tan and of course ‘finding myself’!
The reality- Marriage & Motherhood!
Aged 24 I married my childhood sweetheart in the most dreamy castle setting. I became the princess I had never wanted to be. 12 year old me would be screeching ‘traitor!!’ in her football kit and scraped back hair.
Next, inevitably, came the mortgage. Something else I had never wanted. I wished to rent, bounce from town to town, country to country. I didn’t see the point in staying rooted to one place for 20+ years- Madness!
So what with my life plan totally off course at this point, the powers that be must have thought ‘meh, may as well throw in another curve ball’.
Now if you’ve heard the old rhyme, you know what’s coming.
1st comes love, 2nd comes marriage... yes. You’ve got it.
Our darling son Sebastian showed up in the little square window.
Now, to be fair, this part I did see in my future. Sebastian was firmly plotted on my perfect path, but mid 20s? No way! Not a chance!
I was in a state of shock for the full 9 months.
I thought parents were the people who knew it all, proper adults, like, really have life sussed. I was not a proper adult. I didn’t feel like an adult. Nothing was sussed. I hadn’t ‘found myself’!!
I’d had one relationship, one career, one house. Surely this was not enough experience to warrant this job I was about to take on?!
Come to think of it, I hadn’t felt like an adult signing our marriage certificate, nor had I felt like an adult signing for our mortgage.
Surely though I should feel like an adult now? I was about to birth a human!! Nope. I still didn’t feel it.
But, he made me his mother in despite of all this. He’s here and he’s pretty cool. And I like to think I do a pretty cool job of raising him, along with his dad. Winging it of course. Even so, I still feeling un-adult like.
And I’m still off the red bricked, perfectly aligned path I set out on.
The powers that be (insert your faith/non faith here), tend to laugh at any paths you lay for yourself. They dig them the fuck up and re-lay a winding, scary, steep, uneven, yellow brick path. And they laugh at you trying to navigate it.
However, what those almighty powers didn’t foresee is that the last laugh would be mine, I was about to be the one throwing the curve ball.
You see, this scary looking path is actually quite bloody beautiful. It’s way better than anything I could have ever imagined.
My son is the funniest, coolest, cleverest dude.
My husband is the most loving, honest and hardworking guy, ever. He’s also pretty hot, which always helps!
My house is my little part of England that I work bloody hard to own. It gives me a sense of pride.
I couldn’t be any happier on my mid 20s journey.
So Dorothy, just accept you’ve got to follow that yellow brick road- in fact- get cocky and skip down that damn thing! Because my yellow brick road is often terrifying and I do spend a lot of my time dodging shit (Literally sometimes; we’re potty training at the moment) but it’s also often the most spectacular thing, like ever.
Mega love to you all, we’ve got this...
Comments