by Clare Evans

Forget all those teenage hormones flying around, hitting your twenties is when things get hella complicated.

Whether it’s a break-up, finding your dream job or flying the nest for the first time, you might have found yourself desperately searching for the instruction manual – or at the very least a map – to show you how the heck you’re meant to navigate this decade.

But I’m here to tell you – hey, it’s okay to feel lost in your twenties.

Spoiler alert: NONE of us have got our sh*t together. NONE of us know what we’re doing or where we’re going and ALL of us ask “WTF?!” on a daily basis.

When I hit my mid-twenties, I finally understood what Britney meant when she sang “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman.” Sure I own my own house, have a good job and do all my own laundry…but I’m in no way a grown up. I still ring Mum to ask her how to get tea stains off the sofa and I still find myself dreaming of what I want to do when I’m a big girl.

And guess what? So do all my other twenty-something friends…

It’s okay to not know what job you want to do forever.

It’s okay to make mistakes (putting a red top in a white wash…happens to the best of us).

It’s okay to Google how to boil an egg.

It’s okay to not really know what you’re doing or where you’re going.

It’s okay to feel like a teenager one minute and an adult the next.

It’s okay to feel like you’re still finding your way in life.

‘Coz you are. Feeling lost is part and parcel of navigating your twenties. ‘Coz if you were never lost, how can you find yourself? And how can you come out the other side a bigger, better, stronger woman?

It’s okay that things don’t go to plan.

It’s okay to ask questions.

Where do you want to live? Work? Who’s the woman you want to be? Why do you suddenly have to make all these decisions? When did you get put in charge? N.B. it doesn’t help that all your relatives tell you they were married with children at “your age”. C’mon guys – those comments only ADD to our confusion. 

It’s okay to have a love/hate relationship with social media.

One glance at Twitter or Instagram is enough to leave any lost twenty-something feeling like the only girl her age who doesn’t have her shit together. But, that’s okay. Those girls on Twitter and Instagram? It’s all an act.

Just like your awkward teenage years passed, so do your years spent feeling lost. You’ll come out with some serious sass and amazing stories from those years and they’ll all be worth it. If you don’t feel lost, you can’t find your way.

So don’t sweat if you feel a little lost. We all do.

No road-trip is fun if you follow the map, so rip it up and make up your own path. You’ll enjoy the drive a lot more.

Image credit: Unsplash