It’s been six years since the last Girl’s Guide came out. I know, I’m fired. In that half-decade, we’ve seen new presidents, a global pandemic, I dyed my hair, I regretted dying it and grew it out, and somehow I am still texting the same people. Thinking about a potential future for this column means reflecting on who I was then and where some of us might be now. Let’s indulge in a little nostalgia, shall we? As always, send me your deepest secrets on Twitter and Insta <3.
Another season ends, and here we are, trying to make sense of it all. Somehow another year further from our birth, somehow another month closer to our tax return. It feels like a good time to take stock, to reassess where we’ve been, where we’re at and where we may be heading. Thinking back to where I was when I started writing these guides, and for many of us in our 20s, life seemed to be about developing a sense of identity. A general direction, the rumblings of a plan. Setting off on your own and somehow managing to pay rent, figure out direct debits, appeal multiple court summons. These things felt impossibly complicated as we embarked upon them, reeling at the tiniest challenges, flashing our eyes at those who threatened us. But over time, these battles were hard won, whether we chose to recognise our achievements or not. From the vantage point of 30-something, you can turn and look back over the great plane of the last 10 years with pride. That was back then, this is now.
What kind of woman am I?
But where exactly is now? In our 30s, especially as women, the landscape changes. That’s to be expected, a different set of milestones for each decade. You may have read the most Kierkegaard in the room or travelled the most, or made enough money to comfortably afford to live where you’re living (truly the new upper middle). You may have a robust friendship group of people who both care about you and look good in Instagram photos. But it would be a lie to say these prized achievements don’t start to feel less valuable. What was once impossibly important can feel distant and oddly unsatisfying. Often, what is becoming significant feels even less accessible. Despite hard-earned achievements emotionally, spiritually, financially, I find myself wondering: if not a girl, not yet a wife, not yet a mother, what kind of woman am I? The internet wonders, too, which is never a good thing. Whispers of foolishly missed opportunities, abandoned traditions, ran through ‘finished women’ with unforgivable body counts. Sometimes, I feel as lost as I did at 16. I walk into Trisha’s and everyone’s 23 again. People are spending a month’s rent on a handbag. The incoming Fall, a kind of folding of time onto itself, makes it hard not to reflect on the decisions that led us here. It’s getting colder. Nostalgia nips a toe or a fingertip and suddenly it’s in our bloodstream, it’s beating in our chest what if – what if – what if.
Is everything more complicated now or is it just me?
When I started writing these guides, I largely thought about self-care and relationships through a rational lens: if something doesn’t make you feel good, you shouldn’t do it. This simple approach is right a lot of the time, but as life unfolds, it seems these simple decisions become increasingly complicated. I never expected to seriously wonder whether I should have married my first boyfriend, or stuck it out at a job I didn’t like for the career progression. None of us expected to be living through such an austere cost of living crisis, where Facebook groups for freelance journalists feel like sad and scary places to be, where my friends’ relationships with money, property, leisure can feel insultingly alien to my own. And with difficulty and division comes self-doubt. People on the left and right mock women for quietly expecting not to age out of our humanity. If you seek one out, you will always find a voice to tell you the what if was all you ever had.
Where do I direct all of this?
But those voices aren’t telling the truth, and the what if will only ever be a dying echo. There are good reasons why you are exactly where you are. By this point in our lives, many of us have had experiences that mean choices must be made with extra care, extra concern. Experiences that make trust a little harder, and happiness for the people around you a little harder to reach. Illness, grief, failed pregnancies, failed businesses, failed relationships. Pain has a way of dying back but holding on at the root, sometimes a change in temperature or a flash of light from someone else can bring it strikingly back into bloom. But pain is nothing to fear and nothing to be ashamed of. We all live with varying degrees of pain in our lives, sometimes so far in the distance you can hardly make out its outline, sometimes obscuring your view entirely. Sometimes, the pain sits on your chest. Perhaps the challenges to overcome in our 30s are less out there and more in here. More about overcoming our own narratives and expectations, and recognising that our lives are unpredictable, flighty things which rub as much as they reward. That sting and shine at once. Cold air, bright white sunshine. Another season ends, and here we are trying to make sense of it all.
As summer curls up under last year’s blanket and the sky darkens outside the window, let’s take a moment to notice what hurts and create warmth around it. The thing about winter is you can’t go over it, around it, or under it. So, internet stranger, let’s go through it together.
Going up
Sleep before midnight
Hot water bottles
Lavender
Poetry
Sending cards in the post
Being cold and then hot and then warm and dry (sauna)
Going down
Social media
Amazon Alexa
Tiny socks that don’t stay on your feet
Not drinking enough water
Rushing into things
Being cold and clammy (rain)