I have been acutely aware of the ticking clock of time since I was about fifteen years old. At every milestone I have panicked, looking forward but all the while stretching one hand out behind me, refusing to ply my fingertips from the crutch of the past until pushed. Nostalgia, expectation and responsibility weigh heavy on me.

It is not a fear of change I have but of time.

I know that it is ludicrous at the slight age of 23 I am remotely concerned about this, but I can’t seem to shake it. I have so much time left, I’ve barely even started but I am simply overwhelmed by the vast swathes of things I want to do, places I want to travel, people I want to spend time with that I worry I won’t have time to do it all.

In an ideal world I’d live multiple lives, one as a single, high-powered business woman who lives and works in the city, one as a writer who backpacks her way around the globe, drinking in beach bars and having short but exciting relationships on every continent and one as an activist and campaigner who dedicates all her time to charity and one day settles down to have a couple of kids.

But since I don’t believe in reincarnation I’m stuck with just one.

I’m so consumed by the thought of what I want to do next that I’m not living enough in the present and I fear I’ll waste time even more worrying about it, and so the vicious cycle continues.

I think it stems from a constant pressure to be doing it all in early adulthood whilst you aren’t shackled to the demands of mortgages, children and pension pots, which are scary shadowed demons that creep into your mind every so often and are quickly waved away as a problem for later. There such a pressure placed on these short 10 years that it’s as if anything after is irrelevant and ceases to exist. I know it’s illogical. It’s not as if as soon the moment you hit thirty the grim reaper knocks on the door and hands you a ticking clock, a bank loan, 10pm curfew and wrinkles to welcome in the new decade but it sure does feel like it sometimes.

These worries have all been amplified in lockdown when we’ve all been pretty much unable to carry out our lives as normal. For me it’s been a source of great frustration and most unsettling that I feel stuck on a train that’s just not going anywhere. I’m currently working and living in my childhood bedroom back at my parents’ house, I’m not able to get the most out of my first job whilst starting remotely, I haven’t been on a date in over a year and I feel incredibly lonely and restless. It’s hard to feel like anything is moving forward when everything is so unsettled, it’s not living, just existing.

With every month that passes the sickness at the pit of my stomach rises, in exactly 52 days’ time I will be 23 years old and what do I have to show for that? My youth feels like it is slipping away from me.

I am however hopeful that as lockdown eases, so too will my symptoms of restlessness. I have envisioned the layout and interior of an imaginary flat in Clapham so many times I could practically market it on Rightmove.  I can taste the first sip of Aldi’s 9.99 prosecco, in cheap plastic glasses and hear the roar of traffic outside on moving day.

2021 at least holds some hope where I might start to be able to tick off some of the things I want to do and hopefully go to a nightclub before the hangovers start to catch-up with me.

If I don’t enter the race in the first place then I can’t lose, right?