Nothing is wrong but something is off

For the capable and tired twenty something

A very warm thank you to the many many women who heard themselves in my reading of this on TikTok. I wasn’t expecting any audience. Your messages made it clear the words weren’t just mine, we're all circling the same feelings in different apartments, different cities, different lives. So I’m going to keep writing because it seems like we’re all dancing through the same exhausting choreography anyway.

A journal entry:

I think the strangest part of being in your mid twenties is realizing that nothing is technically wrong and yet everything feels slightly misaligned. Like you did all the right things in the right order and still ended up in a quiet room with your thoughts louder than you expected and you keep wondering if this is the part where life is supposed to click or if this is actually the clicking itself, just much softer than you imagined it would be. And you feel both deeply capable and weirdly untethered at the same time, like you could rebuild your entire life if you had to but you are also exhausted by the idea of having to want anything at all and you are mourning versions of yourself that were fueled purely by momentum and deadlines and other people’s expectations because now there is space and choice and no one really prepares you for how heavy freedom can feel when it shows up without instructions. And you are not sad exactly, but you are tender and hyper aware and learning that intuition is quieter than anxiety and that becoming a woman is less about becoming impressive and more about becoming honest with yourself, even when that honesty does not translate cleanly to anyone else and maybe that is the work right now, learning how to sit inside the not knowing without rushing to decorate it with certainty.

Love,

Paige