Gen Z Guide to FI

In honor of the 10 year anniversary of Sam Smith’s album, ‘In the Lonely Hour’, I have decided to write about the loneliest experiences I have while listening to extremely sad love songs.

Now there’s a difference between being lonely and being at peace in solitude, but in these moments I feel truly lonely:

Traveling at Airports by myself: in the past 2 years, I have travelled A LOT. I do feel empowered to solo travel. I’m writing this while embarking on my first completely solo international trip to South Korea. However, while I’m in the airport, it’s nice to have people to talk to or people to watch your stuff when you go to restroom lol. Another very nice feeling is getting picked up from the airport. If someone loves you enough to pick you up and drop you off at airports, hold onto them forever. I personally don’t love anyone enough to pick them up from the airport. Actually, I do. My core homies. But, even still I don’t do that for them haha.

Moving: everyone hates moving. But moving alone is 100x the struggle. I have had a few great moves in my life. I moved from Nigeria to Canada. Canada to California. Now, I’m moving from California to New York (*coughs* Jersey). I’d never had to move alone until this time. I unlocked a new adult trauma. Moving alone made me feel very alone. I think packing up my whole life and fitting it into 2 suitcases would have been a better experience if I had community to look back at my memories & reminisce.

Holidays: Last Christmas was a struggle. This year might be as well. I usually spent Thanksgiving & Christmas with my college roommate’s family. That is since I moved to the United States. Last year, they had to travel and so that didn’t happen. I had never true intense loneliness in the way that I felt on those days. Thanksgiving not so much because it wasn’t a holiday I grew up with. Christmas though, that shit hurt. I had to turn off my phone for most of the day. I don’t know what this year is gonna look like but I’m already almost dreading when those times roll around. Nothing is more dreadful than having to go into work and do a what-did-you-do-for-the-holidays spiel to your coworkers. I guess that’s a great perk of my unemployment now. 

Anyway, this is a slightly depressing post but I feel like loneliness is a very normal emotion. It definitely keeps me grounded and makes me appreciate when I have people around me that care. I (We) love community ❤

XOXO Gen Z Fire Baby