Wrong train

What an accidental trip to Kent taught me about the end of my twenties

I first realised something was amiss when my train began picking up speed rather than slowing down.

Before that, I’d just been gazing out the window, watching the golden light swirl through the trees, that gentle, late summer, early evening lull.

I was relaxing. People around me were closing their eyes, texting their loved ones, or, like the woman sitting next to me, reading a book on their Kindle in a font so gigantic only a few words fitted on the screen.

The atmosphere was so tranquil, in fact, it wasn’t even until we blitzed past the familiar outline of my own station that I realised something had gone very wrong. The train that I’d blindly wandered onto wasn’t going to New Cross after all.

Oh well, I thought. Surely this wouldn’t be a long diversion.

I peered up over the heads of sleepy commuters in pale blue T.M. Lewin shirts to see where I was actually going.

Next stop: Sevenoaks.

Fuck. No. What?!

I stifled a laugh. Surely not. But the orange sign blinked back at me. It still said ‘Sevenoaks.’

A quick glance at Citymapper told me that I was currently not only 44 minutes away from Sevenoaks, but that it would take me another hour or so to get back home. Oh my God. How had I done this?!

Well, put simply, I’d been waiting at the station, and I’d thought this was my train, so I stepped on.

It had been the easiest thing in the world to end up totally in the wrong place.

I’ve heard it said that 29 is the oldest age in the world, and I think that’s true.

30’s the first big birthday when you’re not a little baby (ahem, 21). Youth, that magical elixir, is leaving you. Soon, you’ll be past it. So what did you do with that decade?

Your twenties are a time when many things become possible. You’re young af! Spread your wings and fly! Travel, don’t get a job! Throw caution to the wind!

But 30… that’s a whole different ballgame. That feels like an age by which you might want to have your shit together a little bit. And as the day approaches, reminders of milestones made and missed start ringing away like little bells in your ear.

Are you where you want to be in life? Are you where you thought you’d be by now? And if not… are you even on the right track?

I will admit that at this grand old age of 344 months old, I’m not quite where I had hoped I’d be. When I told my mum this the other day, she had a comforting riposte: “you’ve watched too many Disney movies!” But the constraints of my reality aren’t just bashing up against expectations about romantic love. For example, I’d really hoped I’d be able to drive by now (!)

When I was a little girl, I used to think that I could do everything I wanted, and that I had all the time in the world to do it. But as I’ve grown older, I see more and more what life is really about: choices. There aren’t infinite possibilities. You just have decisions to make, and once you make them, your life unfurls before you.

Living in uncertainty isn’t easy for a Type A personality with a tendency towards the existential. What I would ideally like is some form of reassurance from a higher power that whatever I’m doing is somehow ‘right’. A little angelic whisper in the ear, saying, you’re just where you need to be.

And yet here I am.

In Sevenoaks.

I didn’t even mean to come to Sevenoaks, and I know it’s not where I want to be. Sevenoaks is a commuter town. Sevenoaks is half a lager shandy and early to bed on a Saturday night. Sevenoaks is 2.4 kids and a mortgage. I might be here, but I’m not there yet, if you get what I’m saying.

And yet. I’m at an age where people are asking me if I’ve considered freezing my eggs, and my Instagram and Facebook feeds unfold into long concertinas of pictures and videos of engagements and weddings and first homes and even - sometimes - babies.

I’m not jealous, I just wonder if I should be doing that too. It’s disquieting when your life starts to diverge from that of your peers when it comes to markers of personal life “success”. I do sometimes think - how much have I already missed out on, because I chose a different path?

There’s no doubt about it, this unwitting journey into the heart of Kent put me in an existential mood. There are many other essays on my mind that aren’t a deep dive into my own soul. But the path I travelled, even though I didn’t mean to, or want to, ended up showing me something after all.

Quite a neat little metaphor, if you ask me.