Welcome to the waiting room

We’re all waiting for our life to “start”

So, I’m waiting.

I don’t know exactly what I’m waiting for, but it’s a feeling.

I have a feeling I’m meant to live a better life; one that’s akin to a fucking Hollywood blockbuster film. I have everything; the body I’ve dreamed of, a 6ft handsome man, a rewarding career, idk…maybe I’m a pop star, an actor. Highly adored. I’m daydreaming, here.

But either way, I constantly feel like there‘s a better life out there waiting for me.

And yet, I’m not in it. So instead, I wait.

Sometimes it feels like I’m sitting in a doctor’s waiting room. The kind with outdated magazines, leaflets targeted at various addictions, pregnancy and medical solutions. That disgusting yellow fluorescent lighting hovering over you. You know you’re going to be called in eventually, you just don’t know when.

That’s what my late twenties feel like.

A strange, suspended limbo between who I’ve been, the version of me that’s died, and who I know I can become.

I frustrate myself with this inaction. I want to be her but I don’t do anything to become her.

I keep thinking maybe the answer will arrive in a perfectly curated TikTok video, the one that feels like it’s speaking directly to you, like you were meant to see that video at that exact moment, a cosmic moment soundtracked with soft piano music and a woman holding a tiny microphone, telling you exactly how to get your life together in 30 seconds or less. As if clarity is something that can be delivered to me, packaged and aesthetic, instead of something I should build slowly and messily by myself.

I know I’m capable of more. I can see it so clearly it almost feels tangible. This version of me is right there, I can see her. A life that feels exciting and aligned. A life that looks full of movement, energy, romance, opportunity.

But there’s this quiet, nagging belief underneath it all:

You’re not her yet. Therefore you can’t date, you can’t create, you can’t exist in this life yet. You need to wait for the right moment to do everything you dream of.

I tell myself I can’t date properly until I’m the best version of myself. I can’t fully step into the life I want until everything clicks into place: my confidence, my routine, my finances, my sense of self. I’m waiting for all the pieces to slot together perfectly before I allow myself to begin being HER.

It’s a strange kind of purgatory. It’s not painful enough to force change, but it’s not fulfilling enough to feel like I’m living.

I’m just… waiting.

The truth is, I’m a late bloomer when it comes to life.

I went to another country for the first time 2 years ago. At 26 years old. Twenty-six. There are people who have visited, or even lived, in multiple countries by then. Meanwhile, I was just beginning.

I don’t have a drivers license, I’ve never been in a long term relationship, whatever else I’m sure I should have experienced by now, I probably haven’t.

And it’s not because I didn’t want more for myself. It’s because life didn’t always allow for it.

I grew up navigating real, working-class responsibilities, where survival, stability, and family came first, and self-discovery often gets pushed to the side. Living freely becomes a luxury, it’s not a given right.

Since my mum passed, something shifted. It’s like I’ve been handed this strange, quiet emblem of freedom. It’s not in a celebratory way, but in a way that says: you can choose now.

And that’s both liberating and terrifying. Because if I can choose now… why am I still waiting?

Why does it feel like the girl I am now isn’t the one that’s worth my dream life?

If I keep telling myself I’m “not ready yet,” I don’t have to risk failing. I don’t have to risk being seen or rejected. I don’t have to confront the possibility that the life I want requires me to act before I feel like the person who can handle it.

So I stay in the waiting room, convincing myself it’s temporary.

But what if it’s not? What if no one ever calls my name? What if the version of me I’m waiting to become is actually built through doing the things I’m currently avoiding?

It’s uncomfortable to admit, but maybe the life I’m waiting for doesn’t begin when I become her. Maybe I become her by beginning now. Doing something now.

And there are more people sitting in this waiting room than I realise.

People in their teens, late twenties, thirties, even beyond, quietly wondering why they feel behind. Why things haven’t clicked yet. Why they’re still waiting for a life they feel was promised to them. Why they’re still waiting for a love they feel like they don’t deserve yet.

If that’s you, I need you to hear this as much as I need to write it:

You’re not late. You’re not behind. You’re not disqualified from the life you want just because it hasn’t happened yet.

Some of us don’t get the luxury of early exploration. Some of us arrive at ourselves later in life. And that doesn’t make the life any less meaningful when it finally begins.

But at some point, we have to stand up. We have to stop waiting to be called. We have to walk into the room ourselves, even if we don’t feel ready, even if we don’t feel like that person yet. We need to get up, and stop caring.

Because that’s what it is. We care too much. It’s not even subtle. It’s literally just being scared of people. Scared of being seen trying. Scared of what someone might say, or think, or assume about you the second you step even slightly outside of the version of you that they’re used to.

It feels like we’re all living in a prison of ourselves. Like we’ve built this cage and then just stayed in it, pacing around, overthinking everything, going over every possible opinion that could exist about us. Like there are people outside of this cage watching, waiting, ready to judge, ready to pick apart anything we do.

And then we sit there and wait.

We’re waiting for this miracle where someone walks up to the cage and unlocks it with a key, and just gives us this life we want.

It’s actually fucking exhausting when you think about it.

Because no one is coming to unlock anything.

We need to get ourselves out of this cage. We need to stop caring what other people think. I’m not saying this in a cute, motivational way, but in a real, almost angry way where you actually question why you’ve let that control so much of your life in the first place.

Who the fuck cares what anyone thinks.

Who cares if someone is sad enough to sit there and pick apart you actually trying. Your appearance, your life, the stuff you don’t have. Who cares if they don’t get it, or they judge it, or they have something to say about it.

Why does that matter more than your actual life.

It doesn’t make sense, but it still controls everything. It keeps you in the same place, in this waiting room you’ve put yourself in, knowing there’s more out there, knowing you’re capable of more, but still not moving because of other people.

It’s not that the life isn’t there. It’s not that I can’t have it. It’s that I’ve been sitting here, waiting, because I’m scared of being seen going after it.

Because the waiting doesn’t end on its own. And neither does the life we want.

We have to meet it halfway.

P.S: thank you for 3k subscribers, it warms my heart knowing there’s so many “pop culture heads” out there feeling the same “feels” as me - sending so much love xx