A pink cotton suit jacket. A pair of colourful leggings with a graphic print like the ultimate 1980s wallpaper. Brown scruffy loafers. Hair tied up in a vintage roll, a toy parrot hanging out one side. And not forgetting a worn-out briefcase containing a broken Casio keyboard found in a charity shop. Welcome to my 20s.
Despite what my outward appearance might have suggested, I remember feeling utterly self-conscious during that confusing decade. I was always putting myself underneath a microscope and analysing whether I was living up to an ideal of what was cool in other people’s eyes. I craved and was committed to the search of being an individual. But when I looked around at my friends, we were all dressed in the same uniform, like we had stepped out of the 1950s. Now I wonder why the hell I dressed like that.
A lot happened during my 20s. I didn’t go to university, turning down the chance to study law at Oxford to try to become a rock star instead. It was an egotistical rollercoaster ride of a decade. At times my darkest days, in other aspects it served up the wildest nights and the biggest lessons that I will carry with me for ever.
I have always been very opinionated, a trait I have realised is a big part of who I am, but in my 20s this was less grounded in experience and knowledge. I was arrogant about my perspective and it gave me a sense of entitlement as if I had everything together. Emotionally I was a wreck: winging it at every moment; making it up as I went along.
Everyone I met seemed so quick to make up their minds about other people. This process was all based on their knowledge of post-punk culture or feminist literature, and it was impossible to shake that judgment off once it had been made. It all seemed like one big exam of who knew the most about alternative culture, and who was most authentic to the artistic struggle. Looking back, we were all stumbling around trying to find out who we were and what the hell we wanted to do in our over-compensating lives.
It was a nightmare finding a boyfriend. I was quite prudish about sex and dating. I think my church background served me with a sense of guilt so I envied friends who seemed so confident at sexually adventurous acts I’d never even heard of. I became the “bridge girl”, the girl who looked like the ex-girlfriend, used as a pathway for helping guys to get over their misfortune and feelings of sadness. This involved a lot of talking and the odd snog but I could never seem to find someone who wanted to be with me.
Our hours were disjointed and we were happy to work for terrible pay and long hours, which ended up with us crashing on the sofa while eating a microwave meal as we watched the final episodes of Sex and the City. Washing up was an alien concept to us, not discovered until our late 20s.
I often felt exploited by the mere fact that I didn’t quite know my professional value, and the art of not accepting every work offer that is given is something I look back on as a good lesson in life. People will pay and believe in you based on how you perceive yourself and your own worth. I was so hungry to work and experience life that internships were still exciting options as long as I could be in the recording studio with a producer who had a single that charted at number 145. This changed in my mid 20s and led to some exciting opportunities but I can’t help but realise now that my lack of knowing who I was had a huge effect on some of the bad decisions I made in my career at that time.
As negative as I feel about this recent decade, and as much as this feeling of fragmentation and lack of confidence often crippled me, I have to admit it was still bundled with a thirst for excitement. Life felt like a blank canvas. Like you had all the time in the world to follow your dreams. We were wild and free. We danced on tables and believed we could take over the world.
I remember singing on night buses with friends on the way home from a night out and enjoying the hungover Sunday mornings. I remember life charts and spider diagrams on my wall listing aims and objectives and the feeling that every sunrise could bring my next possible break. Life was a cocktail of desire and insecurity: all you could do was drink it up.
Now in my early 30s, I wouldn’t change any of it for the world. Despite my mistakes, failures, questionable approaches, and endless discoveries, it all proved useful for this new decade. And I finally feel secure in who I am.
