Navigating Turning Thirty

Hi! I’m Georgie, a 29 year old currently living in London. I turn 30 in just a few months so follow along as I navigate this period of my life. I hope this blog will talk about a whole array of different subjects, from relationships to careers to friendships to travel to exercise and much more.

A little more about me to start – I’m a doctor in my 2nd year of emergency medicine training. I’ve been qualified as a doctor for over 6 years now but took a delayed route into starting specialty training. As I’m writing this, I actually kind of hate that the first thing I’ve written about myself is what my job is. I’m so aware that my job is not my whole identity and I guess one of the issues I’m trying to face at the moment is figuring out who I really am. For a bit more of a back story, I live alone in my flat which I bought earlier this year, I’m newly single and I guess you could say I’m slightly struggling with being “alone” for the first time in my life. I don’t mean truly alone, because I still have wonderful friends around me who I see regularly, but I’ve suddenly found myself with a lot of alone time and am unsure with how to fill it. I’ve always lived with housemates, and now you’re telling me I have to find ways to entertain myself?? Cue this blog.

Growing up at school and at university I always had a million and one things to do to keep me busy. I was on as many school sports teams as possible and played my flute in multiple orchestras. I fear I’ll never have that same level of energy ever again. At uni, I played lacrosse five times a week alongside studying medicine and having a packed social life, so again had very little time for myself. Since moving to London just over 4 years ago, I’ve lost the community I had from playing team sport (committing to teams alongside an A&E rota is seriously hard) and I miss it. It was a massive part of my identity. There’s been research done into student athletes who “retire” after leaving college (this was done in America) and the effect this has on their mental health, and it’s been proven it can lead to an identity crisis, anxiety and depression, so I know that I’m very much not alone.

So what are my hobbies now? I very much enjoy travelling, and have done some big solo trips (I imagine more on this to come in future posts). However, since being my most recent relationship (for the last year and a half or so), I haven’t done any proper travelling but instead have just been on “holidays”. For me, the draw of travelling is being able to experience new landscapes, new cultures, meet new people, try new food. I personally feel most alive when I go to a remote landscape that is so completely different to what we have here in the UK, for example the Okavango Delta in Botswana, or Svalbard (an island close to the North Pole (IYKYK)), or a small village in northern Azerbaijan. Going to these places opens my eyes to the world that is out there and provides an education that could never be taught in a classroom.

However, this is obviously not an every day hobby. So what do I enjoy doing at home? I love to read. Give me any crime novel and I’ll most likely finish it within the day. I’ve read every single book John Grisham has ever written. I recently signed up to get a pass go be able to go into the Reader Rooms at the British Library because there’s nothing quite like the atmosphere of a library to encourage reading and productivity (at least for me anyway). I also enjoy being outdoors and going for long walks. One of the main things I miss living in London is being able to easily walk out into the countryside and go on walks where there’s no one else around. Instead, I go on my walks around the common but it doesn’t quite hit the same. Exercise has very much fallen by the wayside for me recently but I vow to get back into running and swimming regularly, and have just bought a 6 months yoga membership so am now fully (and probably unrealistically) expecting to be unrecognisable by Christmas.

So what about things I don’t enjoy? I guess I don’t massively enjoy cooking (especially when it’s just dinner for one). I don’t enjoy having to work night shifts and not being able to have a routine. If these are the only two things I can come up with that I don’t enjoy then I guess I’m doing pretty well.

If anything I’ve written about re. identity crisis resonates with you, or we share any of the same hobbies, or you’re just interested in a random person’s life then please reach out/comment/follow along. I’m well aware I might be writing these posts just for myself but I guess that’s half the fun. I’ll probably also figure out how to make these posts more visually interesting, but for now I hope you’ve enjoyed the monochrome theme.