***

Rewind back 15 years ago, it was 1999 and I was a blonde haired seven year old who was obsessed with Ponies and the Spice Girls. I lived in a tiny village in North Wales that was miles away from any kind of civilisation and I went to a tiny school with a head count of about 50, teachers included. I considered this to be the best time of my life; I lived in this idyllic bubble, I had zero responsibility and my only worry was how I was going to obtain the Shiny Charizard Card in my extensive Pokemon Card Collection (this was considered to be the holy grail of Pokemon Cards back in the day). It was fucking awesome and I would give anything to be in that stage of my life again.

Fast forward to the present day, I'm 22 years old and I'm at that weird stage in my life where I question everything from my life choices to my dress size while dealing with the fucked-up reality that I am, in fact, an (dun,dun, duuun) adult....and if that isn't enough, I have to keep check on how I compare to others my age. The last bit has always been a bug-bare with me; I am currently a uni student in the big, scary Metropolis of Manchester which is amazing; I live in a big city (which having spent my life in the welsh country side, is a big fucking deal), studying something that I am interested in and I get to go out and get obliterated by alcohol any night of the week then crawl into bed the same time when other people my age are getting up for work...but that's where the problem lies.

The thing is, we are conditioned to believe that if you are not at a certain point in your stage of life, then you have probably fucked up at some point. At 22, I should allegedly be moved out with a 9-5 job not hitting student nights and living off student loans and hand outs from my parents. When you were a kid, no one was ahead of anyone else, we were all at the same level without a care in the world. Every day, I scroll through Facebook and it hits home how far behind my peers I am. While I'm sitting in my student digs, trying to revise while being surrounded by empty mugs and food wrappers with One Direction and Pop Punk blaring from my Macbook, other people my age are graduating, landing their dream careers and even getting married. My friends are always saying that I am so lucky to still be living the student lifestyle but in reality I would give my right arm to trade places with them.

Maybe I have this all wrong? maybe I should be revelling in the fact that I am a late developer and that I have so little responsibilities at my age. 

Fuck convention and unwritten laws, they were only created by insecure people to make others just as insecure as themselves anyway.