On the morning of her 36th birthday, journalist Rachel Syme opened her laptop and, to her 69k followers, wrote this tweet: ‘I feel like 33-38 is a really tough age for a lot of women I know; feels like so many big decisions and future plans have to be squeezed into this lil window; just me?’ Her message collected nearly 10,000 likes and she received hundreds of replies from men and women all over the world.
It’s a feeling I could identify with, too. When I was in my twenties I felt like I was standing at the end of a very long corridor, and all these doors were open to me. Maybe I’d wander down the ‘marriage’ door at some point. That glittering ‘career’ door looked pretty shiny. The door marked ‘motherhood’ was a long way down the corridor, and didn’t look that appealing, but I had plenty of time to get there.
Now it feels like with every passing year, one by one, these doors are gradually being slammed shut. When I turned 33, what I can only describe as a low-level panic set in, kind of like an annoying humming fridge, as I realised that so many of my future life plans hinged on what happened over the next few years. In response to this, I got married, then divorced, and am now starting over from scratch. So when Rachel described this time as ‘going through the swerve’, it certainly resonated.
‘I felt like somewhere in my youth, I decided that 36 was my “scary age”, but now it feels like I’m here and while things are coalescing in good ways both professionally and personally, it’s also in a scary way,’ says Rachel, who is based in New York and is now writing a book about ‘The Swerve’ phenomenon. ‘I feel like nobody talks to you about what it’s like to be this age. We have the youth; spunk, energy, beauty, and there’s so many things people feel like they must do – but where are the conversations about all of the big decisions we need to make?
When I mentioned that I was writing about this turbulent time on social media, I too was inundated with responses. Unsurprisingly, fertility dominated, as it does so many of my conversations and thoughts right now. I had messages from women who were freezing their eggs, or toying with the idea, so that they could wedge that baby door open just a little longer. A friend I hadn’t seen in years, who now lives in Australia, revealed she’d just had a baby after a one-night stand, at 36, for fear it might be her last chance. Another friend said she couldn’t wait to hit 40, because she knew she didn’t want kids and at least by then she wouldn’t have to justify it so much.
'It feels like with every passing year, one by one doors are being slammed shut.'
But there were also messages from people retraining for a new career, emigrating, giving up their jobs to care for terminally ill parents, becoming mothers, or breaking up with long-term partners. ‘I feel like there are all these folkloric milestones of adulthood I should be hitting,’ says my friend Ella, 31. ‘But actually they’re either sailing right by or scaring the shit out of me.’ Clearly this is a time of life when we’re all desperately working out – and re-working – who we are.
‘Your mid-thirties can be a time of intense difficulty,’ says therapist Robert Taibbi. ‘Research on adult development tells us that our lives move in spurts: several years of relative stability and focus, then several years consumed with bursts of unrest. Part of the challenge of this time comes from the fact that your life has actually settled. For many people, their twenties were filled with tremendous changes – you leave education, get your first job, you’re dating – and it’s only now that you have the time to catch your breath and take stock of where you are.
‘If you don’t like your life, then this is the time when relationships end and careers change. And if you’re a woman and you want children but you haven’t had them yet, you might be thinking it’s time to get moving. On good days, it’s a new chapter; on bad days, it’s a dark pit.'
Although at times it can feel as if men get to swerve The Swerve, turns out that they’re feeling the undercurrent of uncertainty, too. ‘I’m a 33-year-old guy and I completely relate,’ wrote one man on Twitter. ‘My girlfriend turns 34 this year and it’s almost like the next six years of our lives have to be mapped out because it’s a race against time.’ My friend Lee, 36, a teacher, told me that men might have the luxury of more time fertility-wise, but that doesn’t mean they’re not watching the clock. ‘Things are supposed to be more stable now than they were in our twenties but they’re not,’ he says. ‘Either we’re not where we thought we’d be in our careers, or we’re not making enough money, or our relationships aren’t working out, or we’re not on the property ladder. Then there’s all this pressure from our family and from society and even ourselves to have it all worked out by now.
Life coach Katherine Bawden works with many men and women who are navigating this intense period. ‘It’s certainly a very squeezed time,’ she says. ‘Even if you don’t want children, it may feel like there’s a time pressure to find a relationship, plus the career you worked so hard for might not fulfil you any more and you feel empty and drained. Your parents are getting more elderly or you might be facing the death of a parent – it’s a perfect storm of anxiety.
So what can you do if you feel like you’re caught in the grip of The Swerve? ‘Firstly, don’t freak out,’ says Katherine. ‘Trust that you’ll find your own way by carving out your own journey, in your own time. Take a deep breath, get some perspective and see what your life is challenging you to do.
Taibbi says it can be helpful to reframe this unwieldy time as a positive. ‘This is a great moment to redefine your life and your priorities,’ he says. ‘Realise that although you may feel trapped at times, you are actually never trapped, and it is only a matter of realising your choices, and which one to prioritise, however limited they may seem right now.
For my part, I’m trying to let the right choice for me unfold, rather than obsessing over the fact that the decisions I make now will affect THE. REST. OF. MY. LIFE. And I’ve found that just opening up this conversation has been massively helpful. As Rachel Syme put it, after receiving so many messages: ‘Here’s the big takeaway: you’re not alone.’
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