On a one way trip to takeover the world ;)

This has literally been the busiest year of my life because I have wanted to do literally everything and be everywhere. And in the last couple of months, much to my dismay, I have learnt that I physically am incapable of doing as such, even if I had a private jet at my disposal (which, for the record, I don’t at the moment). I can’t be at multiple places at the same time. I really desperately want to be. And I am really struggling to make peace with that.

Because more often than not, it is a choice between my friends and my career, and my friends are EVERYTHING to me. The pecking order of things I care about goes as follows: my younger brother, my cat, Taylor Swift, my friends, and then literally everything else.

So I don’t quite understand why I am conflicted anytime I have a work thing come up for which I need to reshuffle plans, typically ones we have had in the calendar for months.

Because that is another thing. Everyone is really, really busy, and I want to be able to see all my friends, so we inevitably pick a weekend thirteen weeks away and then two weeks before said plan I get told I have to get on a plane or a train or a car and be somewhere I do want to be for work. But I also want to see my friends.

I know these are extremely first-world problems. And my life would be so easy if I didn’t care one way or the other. But I really do. Despite constantly saying my job is not that deep and saying I am saving Excels, not lives, turns out I really do care. Which is so weird, because it is just a job. And my friends are forever. There needs to be a concession to be made somewhere, but I am not willing to concede on either because these are the two pillars of my life that bring me a lot of joy, and that was the goal for this year. Joy. And man, I have had so much fun.

Every action of mine for the past year has been determined by what I want and how much joy it brings me. I have been extremely selfish. I joke that it is to honour every woman in my bloodline before me who didn’t have the privilege of choice.

The irony is I would rather not have to make certain decisions because it means giving up one of the things that is really important to me for another thing that is also really important.

But how do I make that choice? It isn’t always going to be one thing. I wish I could make a blanket decision to prioritise one over the other.

One of my girlfriends has straight up refused to even take four days off for a holiday during Easter next year because she is starting her qualifications in March, so she will lock herself in her basement for the following nine months and not see the world. I admire her so much for it. However, that is not me. That is never me.

I run myself in the ground trying to be places and be there for people and myself. I have a lot of fun doing it. I take a lot of pride in it. But I feel like I am sort of failing at that spectacularly. A couple of weeks ago, I had to cancel on friend’s birthday plans the weekend prior because of a work event I needed to be at later that night, except her birthday celebration was in Stockport and this work thing two hours after in London. I triple-check every possible route before begrudgingly letting up that I probably wouldn’t even be able to spend half an hour with her, even if I took the earliest train possible and took the latest train back to make it back in time. To make it worse, I couldn’t go up north the night before because I was taking another friend out for her birthday. So now it was just myself and my guilt stuck between a rock and a hard place.

And I fucking hate it. I hate letting my friends down, but more than that, I hate letting myself down.

I am supposed to be the friend that drops everything for her friends. I will get on a plane and fly halfway across the world to you in a crisis, or let you cry on the phone to me about your boy problems at 8 in the morning before I am supposed to walk into an exam, or let you cry on my sofa at 3 in the morning, whatever the reason be. Whatever you need babe. All statements based on true historical events.

For the better part of the last half a decade, being a good friend has been at the epicentre of my identity. I have always been good at my job, but it was never something I cared about when I worked in finance. It was the thing that let me afford my big girl apartment in Manchester, because I didn’t want to move back to London after graduating. I was foolish to think I could stay away long when I spent half the month in London when I was “living in Manchester”. It is quite literally the greatest city in the world. But I digress. The point is I didn’t really care about my job because I didn’t like what I did. And now I really do.

There is this internal power struggle between the girlfriend and the girl boss. It is uncharted territory I haven’t figured out how to navigate yet. And I hate uncharted territories. I want to know how to do everything immediately! I usually do. UGH!!!!!!!

I reject the notion that you have to absolutely sacrifice everything in your life for your career in your 20s. I don’t think that is sustainable, and I do not want that life for myself, but it almost feels like if I let one cancelled plan become two cancelled plans and then three, I will make a habit out of it. And I never want to be a boring loser like that. The FOMO would kill me. But I have also started caveating every invitation acceptance with “if I don’t have to travel for work I will absolutely be there.” So for the sake of my own mental health, I need to decide what needs to give, as much as it sucks, because something’s gotta give.

If anyone has it figured out, please share with the class. But for now, I think funerals and weddings are non-negotiable. I don’t think I could miss another birthday (I probably will)! I want to try my best not to. People have birthdays every year, so I don’t want to set myself up for failure. I am sorry. I love you. I am trying my best.

I complain, but I do really love my life. And come hell or high-water, I WILL eventually figure out how to be everywhere at once. I literally always do. Just be patient with me until I do. I need to especially be patient with myself until I do. Writing this is my way of holding myself accountable. If you need me, call! I miss hearing your voice and if I haven’t gotten back to you, I will eventually, I promise. It is on my to-do list. It is just a really long to-do list. And I am just a girl that is trying her best. Also, if somebody could give up the AI thing and invent teleportation about now, I would personally REALLY appreciate it.

But a million girls would kill for my problems, so I can’t really complain. I am not. I say that as I crash out on the on the internet once again. But yeah, in case you were wondering why you hadn’t heard from me in a while, that is what’s been going on. A lot. I have had work, and then I have had a dinner thing, and then I have been busy trying to become who I am.

LOVE YOU. MISS YOU. GOBBLE GOBBLE xoxo