BRING. IT. ON.
This Friday I turn 29 and officially enter the final year of my twenties. A decade that began with me living up in Nottingham with a rather large overdraft and a face so orange that I looked like an extra on a Willy Wonka set and is wrapping up with me living back in Brighton, with a husband, a flat and doing a job that I ADORE. It’s been a wild ride. I started my blog back in 2010, graduated with a degree in Psychology, interned PR roles in London commuting back and forth every day, landed a job working in beauty editorial, moved to London and moved in with Mark, left my job to concentrate fully on ‘Vivianna Does Makeup‘ (#memories!), moved back to Brighton and bought a flat, have been lucky enough to travel the world with some of my favourite brands, became ‘The Anna Edit‘ two years ago, got married, started a podcast, wrote a book and somehow I find myself here. If you would have asked 20 year old me how I thought my twenties would look, I would have no idea that they’d have been so bloomin’ good. My life has changed dramatically and I’ve shifted and grown too and actually, I’m looking forward to the next 12 months…
I’ll get onto the personal stuff in a bit, but I think there’s a real excitement in my belly for a lot of career-related things right now (and yes prepare yourselves because I’m about to bleat on about my book again, which is now available to pre-order in the U.S now too!). I’ve worked on my blog and YouTube channel now for eight and a half years and I’ve chugged away creating over 2,500 blog posts and 680 videos. I’ve thrown newsletters and podcasts into the mix, but never have I thrown so much into a project as I have with ‘An Edited Life‘. Everything else that I work on is pretty instant. I record a video on a Friday and it goes up on a Sunday. I write a blog post at 8.50am and it goes up at 9am (yes I am currently writing this from bed – OOPS!). Even the podcast operates on a lag of about a week or two at any given point. But the book? The process is L.O.N.G and hefty and because it’s that way the excitement just ramps up more and more and I think I may actually burst by the time January 10th 2019 rolls around.
So I’m excited for that. I feel like I’m at a place with everything where I’m happy with the content I’m putting out. I know my niche, I know what I enjoy and what you lot like too. I can’t wait to meet more of you and take the book tour out on the road and just to ride this new wave of excitement for a new project that I’ve never done before. It can sometimes feel like as bloggers we’re in a big ol’ hamster wheel of content creation and so I was craving something fresh and new and this has been exactly that and filled that void perfectly. The next 12 months are probably going to be the biggest and perhaps even some of the most memorable career-wise and that both turns my bowels to liquid and makes me want to jump up and down on the spot like Tiger at the same time, which actually sounds like it would have catastrophic consequences.
We’re so lucky to have a great group of mates and the majority of us are in the same boat and down for enjoying that period of life where you don’t have kids yet, have a bit more disposable income than your Uni days and enjoy being in bed by 10.30pm. It means that we can go on holidays together! Weekends away! Go out for the odd nice meal! Do takeaways! Get a round of drinks in! Do a bottomless brunch for someone’s birthday and then end up doing karaoke at 5pm! It’s just a really good time socially and I’m sure it’s a moment of our lives that we’ll look back on fondly. I’m looking forward to packing in all the above and more into the next couple of years.
I also just feel really content in myself. As Caroline says in today’s podcast episode, you really don’t know yourself until you start to approach your thirties. Your twenties are a time to f-up, make mistakes, tune into who you are and who you want to be. When you’re younger these wise words could make your eye roll, but from not being too far from handing the baton over to the next age bracket I can see the truth in this. I think back to how I used to react to situations, things I’d do, things I’d say, how insecure I felt in my relationships, how I didn’t have the confidence to speak up when I felt strongly about something or didn’t agree, and these days whenever I give myself a once-over analysis I think ‘yep – you’re pretty alright!’. It’s not an arrogance, but just a confidence and self love that taken me a long while to appreciate. It’s a more relaxed me. A more assured me. And actually I feel, a more improved me.
So bring it on. I feel like I say that at the end of every cliched birthday post that I write, but this year I really mean it and I’m genuinely excited for what’s around the corner. By the time 30 rolls around I’d have released my first ever book, attended some of my best mates wedding days, hopefully travelled around California with Mark and carved out a bit of time off work, which always leaves me chomping at the bit to get back to it and be ready for my best decade yet. 30? It ain’t nothing to be scared about…
Photos by Emma Croman
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