Single in the Suburbs: Life's a funny old thing (From Your Local Guardian)

Single in the Suburbs: Life's a funny old thing

10:30am Friday 24th June 2011 in Freetime

Do you remember that one-hit wonder by a guy called Baz Luhrmann in the late 90s? It was entitled Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) and was essentially a very long poem by a man who knew a lot about life.

While on holiday, my friends and I would often sit on the balcony of our apartment, staring at the view and listening to the lyrics of this song. Whenever it came on we would fall into a strange, heavy silence - retreating into our innermost thoughts, while taking heed of the songs' advice and pondering our own hopes and fears for the future.

There was one line which particularly struck a chord with me, the part where he said: 'In 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.'

I like that line because it's so true. When you're young it's difficult to comprehend or utilise all of the possibilities that lay before you and be truly comfortable with who you are. Personally speaking, I feel as though I am caught up in some sort of race, desperately trying to conform to what society expects from me by the age of 30 in terms of what I'm supposed to achieve and how I'm supposed to look. (Skinny, with nice husband, cute kids, decent car, good job but not as good as husband's).

At the moment I'm a long way from the finish line. Next week I turn 28 and, quite frankly, this scares me. Why? Mainly because I don't have a boyfriend yet and I haven't started paying into a pension.

When I was little I remember writing in my diary: 'By the time I'm 26 I'd like to be a famous writer, with an American husband (in those days I was choosy), and two children. We'll live in a big house in the countryside, right next to mummy and daddy, and we'll have a horse.'

Well 26 has been and gone, none of those things happened and I'm now turning 28, which is two years off 30. I'd like to emphasise the two years off 30 part because that's the part that scares me the most.

Hopes of ever being a well-known writer are fading fast, my husband is yet to make his grand appearance into my life and, thank the Lord, I don't have two children because I can barely look after myself.

All in all, life in my late 20s is not at all how I imagined it would be. But, before you start organising my pity party, I'd like to stress the point that this is OK.

Funny enough, I'm quite happy with my lot at the moment. I mean, given there's people out there dying of starvation and surviving a day-to-day existence in war zones, it would be selfish of me to say I wasn't. In fact I'm quite looking to my 28th year as a singleton - bring it on, I say. I may not have the husband and the book deal but what's the rush? And, even if it doesn't happen, it will all still be fine. As long as I'm surrounded by friends and family and I can travel and visit new places, I know I'll be happy.

One thing I have learnt is that you can't plan how your life will turn out. As John Lennon once said: 'Life is something that happens while you're busy making plans.' Life has certainly been happening for me. And maybe I don't realise all of the possibilities that lay before me right now, or how fabulous I really look, but in 20 years' time I'd like to look back and say 'I sure do now'.