Julie Ngalle, 21, from France, final-year politics and economics student at Surrey University.
I feel like now is probably the most comfortable I’ve felt. It’s weird, it’s a mixture of being very confused and lost half of the time; and then a mixture of being really excited and kind of embracing the freedom and the responsibility and everything that comes with it.
I think you realise when you’re in your early 20s and when you’re a student living away from home, that life is pretty unpredictable and that adults don’t know much more than you, they just have more life experience and they know how to pretend that they know what they’re doing.
My mom gave me this really good advice when I came back to uni this year, she said we’re in a position of privilege because we have a roof over our heads and we have food, so you have the bare necessities; and for anyone that has the bare necessities everything else falls into place, you don’t have to fight for anything because you’ve got what keeps you alive basically.
So I think that’s one thing I learned being an adult – things are not always going to go how you planned and or how you would like them to go, but eventually you’ll just fall back on your feet and everything will make sense.
You learn that adulthood, well young adulthood, comes with a lot of freedom and yes you should experiment and have fun, but also whether you’re 20 or 35, the responsibilities are pretty much the same, you want to make sure that you can keep yourself safe and as healthy as possible.
Take care of yourself, really
Another lesson from my early 20s is just listening to yourself and putting yourself first. That’s so important. I have an anxiety disorder so now when I get anxious, I listen to what either my body or my mind is telling me because that’s the thing is your body and your mind will tell you so much. A lot of the pain that you can feel sometimes will be related to what you’re going through. If you break your leg, for example, you’re going to do everything that you can to, for it to get better; with your mental health it is the same.
So I think what gets me through things now is just understanding that mental health is something that needs to be nurtured and that I need to take care of myself, in the same way that I take care of others, my career, my room; like every aspect of my life, I need to take care of myself just as well.
Kindness changes everything
Something I’ve noticed in the UK is the culture of encouraging each other. So when you post something, people are genuinely happy for you so I think there is that element of comparison a lot as well but I think because why people do it so much it’s because there’s this culture of just encouraging each other and supporting each other.
The same thing wouldn’t happen in France, it’s that culture of positivity that I really like. Whenever I talk to people whether it’s for journalism or something else, people are always so nice, the kindness here changes everything. It is just little things but the fact that people go out of their way to help you, the fact that you can count on literal strangers.
I feel like in this country nobody judges you without knowing. If you come up to someone and say something, ask for something, or just are dressed a certain way or do a certain thing, it is very rare that the person in front of you is going to make a snap judgement. I think that’s what’s so good, because they don’t make those snap judgments, they’re much more willing to help or give you a chance or talk to you.
That culture of humanity I really love, I really do. And I think that’s what’s helped me become so like pragmatic and like things are going to be okay about my adulthood, it’s just I’m surrounded by people in the country who really rely on optimism to get them through.
What happens after 25?
I think there’s like this narrative of you get a job, you get married, you have kids and then your life becomes boring when you’re an adult, done, and I was so scared; but last year I did a placement and that gave me these reassuring thoughts.
One, as I said, adults don’t really know what they’re doing much more than us, which is kind of scary but also reassuring because it’s like, well if none of us know what we’re doing it must be okay.
I’ve always wanted kids, if I can start having kids around my 30s I really want that. Not because of social pressure, just because I really want kids. I was so scared, this narrative again comes back, of 20 to 25 is when you do nonsense and then 25 that’s it, your life is boring; but working with people that are relatively older than me made me realise your life doesn’t end when you’re 25.
My vision of the world has changed – adults are more low-key because they have more responsibility but it doesn’t mean that they don’t have fun, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have moments where they doubt, and I think it’s really encouraging to know that. My image of the world was very structured but it’s way more grey and disorganised and unpredictable than I thought.
‘They represent stability’
I’m very close to my family, I have two sisters and a brother and my parents are divorced .
Adulthood has helped me get so much closer to my dad. It started as just me asking for practical advice, like money advice, rent advice. I sent him my CV when I was applying for internships and everything because he knows a lot about, my mom’s a teacher so all those aspects of life she doesn’t know as well as my dad. Through those conversations it became like when I was anxious or when I was completely lost, I’d call him for tips and we got closer and closer, but it was adulting that got us closer in the first place.
With my mom it’s kind of the opposite. I’m still extremely close to my mom, and the rest of my family but because I’ve started relying way more on my dad which means I’ve relied way less on my mom. I see a lot of the differences between us a lot more now, and I’ve gotten kind of closer to the mindset of my dad in terms of work and my professional life, so that can create a gap with my mom. That doesn’t mean we’re not as close anymore, but I first I thought it did and that did scare me.
Adulthood has made me so much closer to my siblings because they’re just like comfort, they represent home and stability. My siblings is literally the only stability that I know I have throughout my whole life because we get on so well. We’re gonna be brothers and sisters forever that’s just how it is. So when everything is chaotic or when I’m really anxious or really like nervous about life, my first instinct is to call them. They’re 16,14 and 10, but being around younger people who I was brought up with, that know me so well, it’s changed everything.
Family, just luck?
All societies agree that family is supposed to be everything. I think who you end up growing up with may not be compatible with who you are at all. I’m very lucky that I’m very close to my family, but that’s just luck. but sometimes you grew up in a family and you have nothing in common with each other. I think we should really work on not putting such a stress on getting on with it; because I think family is not who you are blood related to family, to me is the people you can count on and the people that you really always want to have around you. For me that happens to be my siblings but for a lot of people it isn’t and that’s fine.
Again it is something you learned with adulting – sometimes you have to distance yourself from your family or you just don’t want to be around them and that’s totally fine, that’s a standard way of living.
The thing is we change but our parents change as well. That’s also one thing that I’ve realised with being an adult – you don’t just change from your 20 to 25 you can change from 40 to 50 you can change from 60 to 70, from 30 to 40, you’re always changing.
I also grew up thinking like ‘oh my mom is my best friend’ and to a certain extent it was and still is true, because my mom and I, we are very, very similar. So we just got each other for so long, or at least she really got me. But then as we’ve both grown, we’ve kind of like grown apart, not to say we grew less close, but we’re just became more different than I thought. And it did scare me at first because I thought, well it’s my mom, I’m supposed to be super close to her, and this change did create conflict and disagreement on a deeper level. But it’s just life, people change, and then you realise, well actually, our relationship is not what it used to be anymore. We work on it, and acknowledge that we’ve evolved and changed, but it was hard for me to tackle at first, and accept.
I idolised my relationship with my mom and I associated the thought of it changing with something negative. In reality, yes the dynamic between us has changed but it doesn’t mean we’re less close, we’re just close in a different way but that’s also okay, a better way because that’s what works for this version of ourselves. People changing doesn’t mean you all of a sudden can’t get along. It just means your relationship evolves and even though that’s scary, it can be a beautiful, great thing. I eventually came to terms with that and stop associating the change in our relationship with us being less close.”
‘It must be something wrong with me’
Not to compare yourself to others can be so hard, especially when you’re in uni. You’re with a lot of people and I’ve definitely struggled with that, like are they judging me? But I think it’s when you realise that people just don’t care.
Relationships change, but it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be for the worse. Some people are ready, some people are not. And also, it depends on who you meet, like, some people just meet someone that they want to be with and others don’t. So it’s like, it really doesn’t come down to you. But it’s just easier to tell ourselves, like all It must be something wrong with me. And that’s what like, I think we all have that reflex of ‘if I don’t have that, what does that mean?’ When like most of the time, it means nothing, it’s not that deep.
It’s always like that, battling with two voices in your head because sometimes you don’t know which one to listen to. And it is always easier to listen to the voice that’s criticising you. But also, you know that this voice is not the right one. But it’s just easier to feel sorry for yourself. even though sometimes I don’t always believe it when I say it, but even when I’m not believing it, I’m like, no, no, and just keep telling yourself that because by continuing to repeat it, it just goes in and then you stop giving it that much influence.