It’s 1am and it’s been a wet night of torrential rain. You’ve just finished celebrating your mate’s first home purchase, said a ghetto goodbye to your number one Melburnian fag hag for the night and you’re striding home McDonald’s takeaway bag clad. You’re tipsy; actually you’re drunk and the streets of Richmond are barren and empty. You drop your golden arched feast and cue Solange’s insatiable track ‘Loosing You’, before beginning to dance in the middle of an empty road, while sipping on a Chocolate Frappe. Drunk folk could stumble upon you and hurl abuse, a car could come colliding round the bend at any moment and topple you over, but at this very moment the what if’s of this groove, couldn’t be any worse than the what are realities of the now. Saturn has returned, you’re 28 years old and it’s circling the exact point in the sky it occupied at the moment you were born and you, well you’re nowhere near where you thought you’d be two years shy of 30!

You know that moment in an American teen drama when the troubled central characters finally graduate and their valedictorian reads an inspiring speech about the possibilities that abound them beyond the gates of high school? Well I was that guy, the one who did the inspirational speech to his year recollecting the adventures experienced as a teenage collective, and the possibilities that the world had to offer each and every one of them. I stood in front of my entire year and all their family members exhilarated, nostalgic and inspired by the opportunities that we would all be rewarded with as adults. Yet now a decade post the day I first entered my university quad, I’ve definitely lived, certainly learnt a lot and also survived situations I never thought I’d endure. But as for the trajectory and the envisaged accomplishments that my friends and I all perceived would be ours by now, well they’re far from close to being acquired.

Entering university a year younger than many of my peers I aimed to have graduated from my degree at 21, I met this prerequisite set by me as did many of my peers too. I began university life accompanied by my high school sweetheart Frosty and when I left high school I imagined by this age we would no doubt enter our professional lives together and set sail for adventures abroad around age 23. I dumped her however three weeks into university, then six months later desperately tried to win her back post breaking her heart and by 23 I was a fully fledged gay male, who had overcame a nervous breakdown of sorts in his honors year of university. By 26 I thought I’d be a homeowner and at around 28 I imagined the prospect of trying for children would be on the cards. Yet in reality at 26 I found myself living back at home with my parents and as for children my one chance at being a father came a little too premature at age 20 when I successfully held a girls hand as she aborted our child. As for the possibilities of parenthood, well now at age 28 as fate would have it, I’m a healthy 28-year-old male with infertile sperm. 

I have friends that got pregnant at age 19 and are the most content and successful people I know. Friends who were a couple longer than I’ve known them as singles, who parted ways in their mid twenties and over 80 % of my group of friends from my teen years, university years and professional years have explored the globe, still have a student loan that they are repaying and have no property title to their name. Over 80 % of these friends are also unmarried, 60 % of them are in long-term relationships and 20% of them are still successfully single. Does this mean that by not meeting the expectations we thought would be a reality by now we have failed? Not quite.

At this very moment when I am in the midst of my own ‘Saturn Return’ I am currently job seeking again post committing and giving my all professionally to another organization who could no longer afford to keep me employed. I am still single and am actually more terrified of saying yes to a long term relationship than remaining unattached and as for the living situation, well I’m still a shared house dweller, but weeks away from moving into a new living arrangement with my number one Melburnian fag hag and her loveable boyfriend. Yet although I don’t have the tri-factor and life seems to be giving me lemons on all fronts, the prospect of painting those lemons gold is more liberating than terrifying. 

I think the problem for many of us is that when Saturn returns, when we become a bridesmaid again, return home to get the tour of our friends prime residential purchase, become a white collar victim of unemployment for a few months or sing Frère Jacques to our nieces and nephews with our siblings. Our internal monologues take over and we focus on what we don’t have rather than what we have or have been privileged enough to experience. Sure we may be fast approaching thirty, sure we may not have achieved half of what we perceived, but there are five orbits that that a Saturn Return and life as a twenty-something gifts upon us all.

Orbit One: Professional life is unfulfilling

The moment we enter the work force we imagine life will be more rewarding, we will earn more, we will be remunerated for our efforts and we will progress within our select industry and be presented with opportunities the longer we serve a select sector. Sadly though while we do progress we also regress in terms of our professional development, just as frequently as we climb another step on that corporate ladder. Whether we realize that a particular field is not where we want to be, discover our job description does not resemble our role or continually sign contracts with organizations that become financial victims of the global economy, working nine till five or eight till six in most cases, ain’t all glitter and gold. Actually it’s more sacrifice and wrinkles, but we do it sometimes to support our lifestyle and more often than not because we have the perseverance to know that from this commitment better days professionally will come, eventually.

Orbit Two: A married homeowner without a globe that maps their travels, isn’t that accomplished.

As soon as a long term relationship bridges past the 3 to 5 year mark and once our siblings and friends start signing registry forms, conceiving offspring and laying their foundations on concrete property investments, the magnifying glass of societal expectations begin to cast their lens upon our lifestyles. Whether we’re still single, in a committed relationship but latitudes away from the isle, choose career goals over baby booties or are renting without the responsibilities of a mortgage hanging over us. We still occasionally will find ourselves observing what ‘they’ have and wondering if we should be focusing more on attaining these ‘conventional’ life goals. Yet while a clothesline of baby bibs, a backyard with immaculately groomed box hedges and a wedding band that is permanently cemented to your finger may enrich your friends, work colleagues and families lives with happiness. Being able to explore the globe, sharing narratives and moments on different continents with strangers whose laughter becomes ingrained in your memory bank and being afforded the possibilities to work abroad or accompany your partner on their own creative or professional adventures in a foreign cityscape. Will actually provide you with its own unique sense of accomplishment, one that will afford you the same fulfillment, insight, personal growth and greater understanding of yourself and the world around you as a white picket fence and a baby monitor will. 

Orbit Three: People are assholes and sometimes you will have to be a cunt too.

We’re taught to be considerate, compassionate and courteous to everyone that we meet from a young age. The ability to compromise, appreciate others points of views and work together collaboratively with our peers are all attribute which our elders instill upon us. Yet the older we grow and particularly in our twenties the realization that people are assholes is abundantly clear. Our bosses and our colleagues will use us and exploit our talents and dedication to our role for their own gain. People will discriminate against us for our belief systems, sexuality, accent and physical appearance, even if they think their prejudice is aptly disguised or we are to clueless and worthless to pick up on its presence. But what you also discover is that everyone is out for number one and while being the kid with great sportsmanship and a kind hearted nature may have boded well for you in your younger years. Eventually you have to stand up and stop thinking about how your decisions will affect others and focus on how your choices will benefit, change or affect your life and let others fend for themselves in life. After all as cunty as it may seem, in the moment when you learn to speak up for yourself no matter who you’re with or how old you are, you’ll never let yourself be second best to someone else’s feelings again. 

Orbit Four: Being single is braver than committing for companionship.

One of our biggest fears as humans is being alone, we want to be loved, we want to be held and we want to share our lives, heart and soul with someone who is the sprinkles to our ice cream sundae. Yet the more we date, the more we experience relationships with others and the more we discover what we want and don’t want in a partner, deciding to commit to someone and breaking down the barriers of our ‘ideal partner’ becomes more and more difficult. Coupled friends may surround us; we may go through seasons where 50 % of our weekends are spent celebrating nuptial commitments, we may stroll a bustling cityscape on a Sunday and feel a yearning in our heart as we see couples holding hands, syncing their mannerisms with affection and showering one another with love. But the decision to continue dating, to have many relationships and to savor your own company and your place within everyone in your folds world, rather than committing for the sake of companionship, shared assets or because you’re the last single in your group of friends. Is actually an act of bravery rather than coy selfishness. So if you’re dating someone that is perfect on paper, wants you for you and would be the ideal long term partner. But you don’t feel any sparks with them or they’re comfortable but they don’t challenge you or invigorate a sense of passion within you, don’t be afraid to say no to a relationship with them and choose being a singleton over companionship. Because the clock that you’re hearing ticking at you to find the one, set up house with them and showcase your love to the world, is an internal one, one that is powered by the your mental batteries.

Orbit Five: Not knowing what you want, isn’t as terrifying as knowing what you will never have.

We are expected to know what we want, who we are and where we are going in our life. By our early twenties we should know who we want to be professionally and the trajectory that we want our career to take us on. By our late twenties we should know where we want to live long-term, who we want to live here with and at some stage in our projected blueprint know when we will choose to start breeding. Some of the smartest people I know don’t know where they want to go and who they want to be in this world. Some of the most uncultured people I know also don’t know where they want to go but they are content with being dissatisfied about everything the world hasn’t gifted them with. Yet while it may be terrifying at 27 or 30 to be working, yet still unaware of what you actually want to do as a professional, while still searching for the place you want to call home at 30 may seem like a Peter Pan notion and while deciding after a decade long relationship with someone that you need to explore more of life and to find you rather than spend 20,000 on a white wedding may seem absurd to your friends and family. Not knowing whom we want to be and where we want to go is not failing, all it means is that we have the intuition and awareness to continue searching for something that fits for us, after all life is not about the destination but the passengers that we travel with.  

The Saturn Return is scary; it’s often a very lonely place to be, because honestly admitting that we no longer want the life we are currently living to our peers, let alone ourselves, is just as terrifying as our first day of school. Yet from confronting who we are and what we stand for when Saturn Returns, ultimately we what find is the ability to find ourselves, find a home that is uniquely ours and find a partner who we are with not out of urgency and need, but because they will continue searching for more from life with us while spooning us at night when the world keeps slamming doors in our face. After all whether we are entering our first Saturn Return, overcoming a break up or in the midst of a professional breakdown. When life gives us lemons the only thing we can really do is with ruthlessness, strength, fierceness and courage paint that shit gold! So don’t fear where you are today instead smile at your decision to choose to have a journey, not just a life.

Written by Samuel Elliot Snowden