woensdag 17 augustus 2016

Surviving Adulthood: Roaring Twenties & Dancing Shoes


It takes a lot of courage for me to write this post but I'm doing it anyway. This article: https://hbr.org/2016/03/why-your-late-twenties-is-the-worst-time-of-your-life   pretty much sums up my feelings during my mid-twenties.

I'll begin with my teenage years. During my late teenage years I was rather carefree. I had tons of energy and I didn't have a lot of trouble with school. It was rather easy for me to get good grades. I lived in the safety of my parents'  home, so I didn't need a lot of money for food or other things like transportation costs. I had a bike, so I could cycle to wherever I wanted to go. Life was simple. School was 5 days a week. Ballroom dancing lessons were once a week. I went out once or twice a week. I saw my friends during and after school. If I had time, I would go dancing or take acting lessons or write. I had no relationship and a part-time job for a maximum of 12 hours a week. I didn't have to worry about my career or my life goals or serious relationships or relationship issues. I was very young and I only had to focus on school and friends and parties, while dreaming about all the great things I would do once I would become an adult. Furthermore, I was very slender and I could eat and drink whatever I wanted. I never gained any weight. Life was good!

Then adulthood came. I became 18 years old and I was going to enter university and student life in Amsterdam. This was a very exciting time! The first week of getting to know everyone was amazing! I decided I should join a sorority. So I did and I got to know a lot of people. Life was great. I even got a great, sweet, loving boyfriend. We were inseparable. He was my closest friend. I never had to feel alone, because I was almost never alone. But soon, life became very busy with all these new developments. Studying took more time than before and my relationship took a lot of time. On top of that, I had commitments to my job and to my sorority. It was very stressful and I started to feel trapped in all of these commitments. I would take out these feelings on my boyfriend. Looking back at it, we should have been more time apart so we could do the things we wanted to do, but when you just started studying in a big city, it's easy to cling to each other. You still miss your parents after all. You have to make a lot of new friends, so it feels easy and safe to stay together and do everything together.

Years passed and after that relationship ended I had to try to live on my own and make my own friends. When I was finally over my ex boyfriend I fell in love again. The road has not been easy these last couple of years but we're still together. It has been so difficult for us to manage the time we spent studying, seeing friends, on our jobs, hobbies, interests and together. On top of that, I have a lot more worries now in my mid-twenties than I had as a teenager (of course). It became even more this year, because after this August I will have to pay for my studies, my apartment and everything in my life all by myself. The government won't finance me any longer, so I will have to work for my money. This means I am trapped in a situation of having to study and work at the same time, while trying to maintain relationships and finding time for my interests.

Furthermore, because of all these worries and stress in my roaring twenties, my weight started to increase. I used to feel very confident about my body and the way I looked, but these last two years I haven't felt good about my body at all. I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted, but now my body is fed up with it. All this stress has made food, sleep and inactivity so much more attractive. I know some people who, in their twenties, still have the metabolism of a teenager and I don't know how they do it. It takes courage to say this in my blog, but I hope I will overcome this.

I've decided that enough is enough now. I cannot feel confident about myself or achieve any goal in the field of modeling if I don't do anything about this. I have to exercise more and do sports that I like. Less coca cola, red bull, cake and chips. More salads, vegetables and fruits. That's not that easy for someone like me, who looooves food. But I know I can't be the only person in their twenties facing these struggles.

To achieve this goal of losing weight and being healthy, I have to do sports that I like to do. So I thought about the sports I could do this year and would love to do/learn. During my teenage years I was a ballroom dancer. I love dancing and I was pretty good at it. I think it's time for me to finally put on my dancing shoes again. Additionally I love doing ballet because it makes your body fit and strong and it's very elegant. I would love to learn ice skating as well. Just because I have always dreamt about doing this one day. Why not try and do it?

In addition to doing more sports, I would also like to spend more time with my hobbies. I would like to start writing more and putting much more effort into it. I would like to spend more time into acting and singing as well. Take lessons and do auditions.

Deciding to finally do all these things feels like a breath of fresh air. I was beginning to feel more and more ' trapped'  and ' stuck'  in my life. Stuck in a 9 to 5 job, stuck in learning and studying. Stuck in paying bills and working to pay those bills. I felt so trapped and unhappy, because I wasn't doing the things that I love to do. Knowing I will do the things I like to do again makes me feel very happy. It makes me feel like I can be Charlotte again!

And even though I now have to work for my money instead of receiving a loan, it seems like I actually now earn more money by myself than I would get from the government. I've actually become much more used to working 3/4 days a week, that it has actually become easier to work a lot than it was in the past. I am now used to working a lot, whereas in the past I wasn't used to working at all. I've realized I actually don't mind working a lot. I just need some time for my interests, my studies and friends and then I'm fine. Life can be strange.

Time-management is a recurring issue in my life and in my blog. Now that I'm 25 (I still don't understand how that happened) I have a lot of goals I want to achieve but I also want to enjoy my twenties. Time is slipping away so time and time-management is incredibly important to me. I don't know how other people do it and I would love to share tips & advice with other people struggling with this. I want to focus more on time-management in my blog.

Your twenties can be a terrible, stressful and lonely time. Becoming an adult is a big challenge. It means finding your own strength, standing your ground and learning to be independent. It means taking care of yourself and being able to be alone successfully. I also want to focus more on this recurring theme in my blog. I want to break the taboo of feeling unhappy and insecure during your twenties. You still have to found out who you are and that's okay ;)

- C.

1 opmerking:

  1. Yes! Put those dancing shoes on! I love that you're discovering who you are rather than waiting for time to pass. Keep going!

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