April 10, 2015 - Written by: Becky Solomon

That Feeling of Flatness

At the pub the other day with two friends, one of the said, ‘What would our eight year old selves say if they saw us now?’

We all burst into laughter. It was the kind of laughter where it could have quite easily been tears, but instead we laughed to ease the pains of being adult and watching unfulfilled dreams slip further away.

Through the general catch up chatter we touched on life, work and relationships, until one of them said, ‘I just feel a bit…flat’.

It completely hit the nail on the head. Again, we burst into laughter.

‘Yes! That is exactly how I feel’, I agreed in excitement that someone had been able to so simply articulate how I feel about my life, a couple of months before turning 25.

It’s not that I’m not grateful for where I am. I wrote a five year plan after a big break up a few years ago and looking back on it now, I have done a lot of those things and I am damn proud of myself.

But whilst I feel a little bit in limbo with work and perhaps questioning why I haven’t taken the plunge to a new city or started my life abroad yet, I think these all added to the feeling that I wouldn’t have impressed my eight year old self.

Eight year old me would not be saying, ‘congratulations, you have managed to pay your bills successfully’ or ‘congratulations, you work in an office’.

In fact, even my eighteen year old self would be less than impressed with this. At eighteen I was just about to embark on a world of new adventures, and to think that I didn’t continue them at the first chance I had would mean I had become an incredible disappointment.

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I know really I have nothing to be disappointed at. I admit that there is a point where you have to start being able to look after yourself and pay your way and it is an important lesson to learn. Having said that, by assessing what eight year old me might think was more impressive, it is certainly making me think about taking a few more risks. I’m at a pretty comfortable stage at the moment, but this also means I’m at a point where I don’t have much to loose.

So what can I do to make life a little less flat?

I think the feeling stems from having reached a relatively stable point in life and to be honest, to have nothing to grumble about. (There must always be something to grumble about!) But to solve this, I think I could take a risk and do something that I dreamed of doing when I was eight.

Whether it be volunteering with animals, writing crazy stories or living abroad. I think it’s time to say, ‘Fuck it’ to the conventional and impress my eight year old self again.

If you enjoyed this article, why not check out ‘A Little Help From My Friends’?