I can’t believe that it’s been over a week since I turned 35!
Before sitting down to write my annual birthday blog post, I decided to go back and have a read of my post from last year. It was actually surprising to see how different my general mood and mindset was from 2019 to 2020.
Last year I was rather positive, motivated and excited for the year ahead. This year, not so much. In fact, the only similarity I could find between last year and this one is that I’m still absolutely bloody useless at sticking to a blog schedule. Some things never change, eh?
It’s strange to think that turning 34 really didn’t seem to phase me, while adding just one more year has left me feeling really shaken Is it because I can now no longer deny that I’m on the slippery slope to 40? Is it that I’m still feeling I haven’t achieved many of the things I’d hoped to by this age? Am I just having my own version of a mid-life crisis? (Believe me, I’d buy a red convertible in a heartbeat if I could afford it!)
Personally, I think the whole Covid-19 fiasco really hasn’t helped with my feelings around getting older and time passing. I’m suffering from a particularly bad case of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out, in case you didn’t already know). Normally, I’m really busy person with tons of projects and plans to keep me moving forward. This year, most of the things I’d planned have been cancelled and it’s left me feeling a bit….stuck.
So far, 2020 has been rather stagnant, and as I reach the middle of my 4th decade on this earth it’s really hard not to hear that incessant ticking clock of life passing you by. Nobody really knows how long they have left in this life, and I certainly don’t want to feel I wasted precious years just sitting around doing nothing. I want to be out there, living life to the full, and this pesky global pandemic has really thrown a spanner in the works.
I can’t help shake the feeling that if I want to make big changes – move house, change career, get fit, learn a new skill – I need to start now before time runs out altogether. And I can practically hear my older friends and family screaming at me through the internet that I’m still comparatively young and have so much ahead of me, but this is the first time I can ever remember genuinely feeling worried that I’ve wasted all my “good” years and now have nothing to look forward to, except maybe grandchildren! (perish the thought!)
I am really hoping that this current slump in mood is just down to the strange circumstances we find ourselves living in, and I hope that in the next year we can all find our way back to something like normality. One thing 2020 has really taught me is that there is no time like the present and we never know what tomorrow will bring, so you need to make every moment count. If you want to do something, do it now as there are no guarantees about tomorrow.
And on that cheerful, I’ll wish you all well and hope for a slightly more optimistic end to 2020.
