She stared out the window of her fourth-floor apartment. One bedroom. One bathroom. A fairly decent kitchen/living space. A tiny balcony with a mediocre view. She hadn’t turned the lights on yet, enjoying the soft early evening light. Boxes were littered across the floor, with only the essentials unpacked. That was the thing, you see. She’d always had a lot of stuff. But the essentials? The essentials wouldn’t fill a suitcase. Her laptop. Her trusty skinny jeans. 28 was probably a bit old to still be wearing skinny jeans, but the millennial generation didn’t have to worry about growing up. After all, she’d only just moved out of her parents’ house. Today. Yes, it’s true she spent three years living away from home at university, but that was long time ago now. She couldn’t even afford to buy the little flat. It was a rental. The minor pay rise that came with her promotion meant that she could afford the rent on the place, and could still eat and travel to work.

What had happened that this is where she was at 28? At 18, when she was fresh-faced and still full of enthusiasm she’d imagined herself living in a three bedroom home. Maybe a house in the suburbs, maybe a condo in the States, maybe a flat in a foreign city. Owning it, and not alone. Having a husband and maybe a baby on the way, or at least in the works. She never imagined this. Or maybe she did, but still had enough optimism to treat this as worst-case scenario. She didn’t even get to write. She hated her job, had a disappointing social life, and a non-existent love life. It’d been four years since her university boyfriend had broken up with her because he needed to find herself and live his life. Apparently she wasn’t an important enough part of it.

A beam of light broke through the open curtains and nets, as the sun set. She tried to think about the positives in her life. She wasn’t heartbroken over Alex anymore. That was years ago. She didn’t have to work in the God-awful café anymore. At least when she got treated like crap at work, it was her boss, not the customers. Now she had her own space – at home and at work. She’d been upgraded from her cubicle to a cubicle-sized office. Upgraded from a teenager’s bedroom to a 22 year old’s flat. Sure, they weren’t the best improvements, but she wasn’t going to turn them down.

There was food in the kitchen – she’d been shopping instead of unpacking. She tossed some chicken into a frying pan and comforting sizzling sounds attacked the silence and pushed it away. She was going to have to get used to living alone. She could’ve been living with roommates all this time, of course, but she’d not exactly been a social butterfly at university. Having put in a lot of effort to Alex, she’d lived with the quiet kids in second and third year and those people didn’t end up needing roommates at 24, let alone 28. She hated the people she worked with. The pessimism had increased as she’d got older. She went out less and did very little. She worked. She came home. When she was young, her family had a lot of hope for her. Having always been an academic overachiever, the 2:1 had actually been a little disappointing. She’d been hoping for a first. Being a prefect in school had destroyed her desire to get involved with the students’ union.

When she finished her degree, she had intended to do a postgraduate in journalism. But after her undergrad degree, the money was gone and she promised herself she’d take a break for a year, pay off the £3000 overdraft, and go straight back into it. But she liked earning money, and couldn’t go back to being a poor student, or living off her parents. So she put it off. And off. And off. Now it was too late to do it.

Of course she could still dream. She thought about leaving it all and going to a completely different place. She probably wouldn’t last the week. All she used to be was gone. How long had it even been since she read a new book? All the labels she’d had growing up – gifted and talented, smart, confident, nerd, conscientious, best friend, prefect, straight A student, dancer, university student, journalist, bookworm, writer, actress, girlfriend – they all meant nothing to her now. All those things which dictionary defined her. Not part of her now.

What labels did she have now?

Single. Worker. Graduate.

Was that it? She was “Katie from work”, “Katie from school” and “Katie from university”. That’s all.
She closed the curtains, and wondered if that was a large enough definition for her.