{"id":14,"date":"2021-03-19T08:48:48","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T08:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/?page_id=14"},"modified":"2021-05-10T16:22:26","modified_gmt":"2021-05-10T16:22:26","slug":"valentine","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/valentine\/","title":{"rendered":"Valentine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Valentine Charlie Caulfield, 27, from France, moved to Manchester in 2014, a MA journalism student at Manchester Metropolitan University.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">My early twenties were probably really fun. I used to go out a lot, get drunk, and I enjoyed going out and hanging out with friends. I have done a lot of things, I worked in bars, I have been a DJ, I have been a promoter and all of those things I\u2019m really grateful for them. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll be where I\u2019m now if I hadn\u2019t done all of those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As I have grown up I\u2019ve learned to focus on the things that I think really matter. Obviously I admire some people but I\u2019m also conscious of the fact that I have my own achievements and there are things that I look forward to and there is really no need to look at other people\u2019s lives and think I should be doing this or that, if there is something you want to do, just try and do it. There is no point focusing on other people\u2019s achievements, If there is nothing you can take from them, then it\u2019s not worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s been times in my twenties where I felt like I had everything together maybe a lot more than I do right now, but that wasn\u2019t necessarily a good thing. I think your twenties are a really a good stepping stone for the rest of your life, it\u2019s the time where you can make a lot of mistakes and they don\u2019t necessarily matter very much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.slices.co\/stories\/-MWYKcKzvO3zhIeS6GzL\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Losses and breakups<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019ve lost people and I\u2019ve had breakups, there\u2019s been a lot of things that have triggered really bad episodes in my life, pretty much the only thing that they have in common is that the way I managed to get myself out of them is by being with the people that I love, even when people I loved died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Struggling with not knowing what I wanted to do and being in jobs that I didn\u2019t want to do\u2026that also triggered really bad moments and the way I\u2019ve dealt with that was surround myself with people who motivated me to try and do something else with my life. I have definitely had really good friends around me who pushed me to go back to uni, to do my masters, and I think that helped a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Breakups have taught me I have terrible taste in men. The first few years of my twenties I was not in relationships because I didn\u2019t really care that much, and then I was in two long relationships in a row, I think they\u2019ve just taught to be careful with who I fall for because\u2026I just have terrible taste in people. But also just even though it is hard, it\u2019ll get better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes I do find it really annoying if I\u2019m not in a relationship and there isn\u2019t anyone around me. Sometimes you just have this\u2026not even necessarily a need but longing for being able to share things with someone and there is no one in your life that kind of fits that bill. It\u2019s not the most pleasant thing but I\u2019d also rather be with someone that I really care about than just be in a relationship for the sake of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Taking chances<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was very adventurous which is not necessarily the worst thing. I took chances and I took risks, some of them paid off and some of them didn\u2019t, but that\u2019s the decade where I moved to the UK after working in France for a bit. I did things that I never thought I\u2019d do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My twenties were very fun and I\u2019m glad I got to do it, but there are other things I\u2019m looking forward to. As a decade I would say my twenties were very much a time of opportunities. I did do a lot of things, not all of them great, but I did a lot of things and it was pretty good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You get to a point in life where it doesn\u2019t really matter anymore whether you know what you want your life to be or not, you just make decisions, and you just keep going and that is just what life is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">40s? Can&#8217;t wait<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I\u2019m genuinely excited for my 40s, I think I\u2019ll be really good at being in my 40s. When you get to that stage, you probably don\u2019t have anything to prove anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Being a woman in your 20s, there is a lot of pressure on you &#8211;  to look like this and be like this, be really skinny and have great skin\u2026but by the time you reach your 40s you get to do what you want and you get to be your own person, and a lot of the world is not going to look at you only like a sexualised person, you are actually going to be a person. You will stop caring about what the society thinks of you, you stop being just a woman, and that sounds like so much fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Valentine Charlie Caulfield, 27, from France, moved to Manchester in 2014, a MA journalism student at Manchester Metropolitan University. My early twenties were probably really fun. I used to go out a lot, get drunk,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":316,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-14","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/centreforjournalismprojects.co.uk\/ourtwenties\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}