I felt resolutely alone this year. Not in a conventional way. I have people in my life who are present, and fulfilling to be around. But I felt alone in the things that happened to me, and the decisions I made, and what I realise now, looking back, is that at the age of 34, I am still negotiating my independence. I’m still figuring out what it means, looks like, the price I pay for it, and how to hold on to it – something I sort have assumed I would have figured out by now.
The year began with a massive financial rug being pulled from under my feet. I lost £9,000 when the company I was freelancing for folded. And as a freelancer, I was caught at the sharp end. You’re legally unprotected (unless you have insurance) and bottom of the list for any payouts. My decision to ‘go it alone’ a year earlier had seemed like a no-brainer - working on my own time, free from office bureaucracy, no more infuriating commute. But it wasn’t until I lost the money I realised just how alone I was. I craved the independence of working on my own terms, but I discovered how tough that road can be.
The fire of self-belief fuels independent working. No one is on hand to encourage, guide or steer. You have to wake up each morning and propel yourself forward, like one of those kids’ bikes with no pedals. Somehow you muster the strength to throw yourself forward. But if that goes, like it did for me in 2019, you are motionless. You don’t even drift or coast like you do in a full-time job, where the infrastructure (and salary) of the job will carry you along; you come to a halt. And then you (and only you) have to make yourself move again somehow. Entering and exiting a major crisis of confidence this year reminded me that independence – the feeling of holding your own, and standing on your own, too – isn't only about age, or property or how much money you have. Independence has its roots in a belief – and therefore capability – to keep going when things don’t work out.
When I told my mother that my partner and I are thinking of leaving the city, she responded with disdain, surprise, rejection.
My independence was tested in another way in 2019. For the first time ever, I suggested a life plan to my mum and she told me, in no uncertain terms, that she thought it was a dreadful idea. My mum and I are very close, and I seek her approval above anyone else. And, for the most part, I get it. Yet, when I told her that my partner and I are thinking of leaving the city, she responded with disdain, surprise, rejection. What was a solid idea, has now been knocked over by her doubt, and I’m trying to rebuild the plan, block by block, trying to figure out if she is right or wrong. Or, more importantly, if at my age, it matters what my mum thinks. (She had certainly done many things against her mother’s approval at my age.) Once again, independence has come as a nasty shock this year – and there’s no one who can sort out the mess other than me.
But I also felt blissfully alone in 2019. I finally made my first solo trip. I flew to Chicago and spent four days and nights walking through the streets by myself, dizzy from the vertiginous buildings, the rush of the city, the bite of the cold, I felt like I was almost levitating with excitement. I felt untethered to the worries of reality, and instead, in one glorious free fall of possibility. I took myself off to late night blues bars and found myself chatting with the band. I spent time, silently, in museums and galleries, unaware of myself, lost in the space in front of me. I asked for tables for one, rooms for one, tickets for one. I took a boat tour and craned my neck to marvel at the architecture by myself. My independence felt fully formed. It propelled me forward into conversations with strangers. It made me open doors by myself without knowing what was behind them. I felt truly independent, and I felt alive because of it.
As we go into January 2020, my partner and I will celebrate four years together. I don’t think the feeling I had in Chicago, like a lone balloon floating unpredictably across the sky, is incompatible with a long term relationship by any means, but you have to make the space for moments like that to happen. You have to allow the feeling of independence to remain somehow in a space where everything is shared, when you become reliant on another person, when you cross-reference every thought and feeling, with theirs, at all times.
I thought my 30s would be the time I truly felt independent, making my own way in the world. And to some extent that is true. But 2019 has taught me that independence – such an important way of being, that allows you to truly know and back yourself – is an ongoing
condition, in flux, that we constantly have to negotiate and renegotiate. It brought me hardships in 2019, but it also brought me joy – and reminded me just why it is so precious.
Let’s Reflect: As 2019 comes to a close, Grazia writers are looking back and looking inwards to reflect on the last year.
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