What Now?

On finishing university, moving home, and the uncomfortable freedom of not knowing what comes next

Fashion lovers, hi, and welcome back to a new piece after taking a week off to settle into what suddenly feels like a completely different life.

Over the past few weeks, everything has changed at once. I have finished university, moved back to my home country after three years in London, moved into my own apartment, and started thinking seriously about what I want my adult life to look like. Even writing that feels strange because for so long, university was the plan. There was always another semester, another deadline, another version of life that already existed in front of me. Now, for the first time in years, everything feels open.

It is strange how quickly major life changes happen. One day you are submitting assignments and planning your week around lectures, and the next you are surrounded by moving boxes, applying for jobs, and trying to build a new routine in a city that used to feel familiar. I think that has been the biggest adjustment for me so far. Oslo is home, but I have not lived here in three years, and I am not the same person who left for London at nineteen. Returning feels less like going backwards and more like arriving somewhere new with an older version of myself.

London will always feel like a second home to me. The past three years shaped me in every possible way, and I cannot imagine becoming the person I am now anywhere else. It gave me independence, confidence, friendships, experiences, and a version of myself that I do not think I had fully met before moving there. At the same time, I started feeling ready for something different. Not because I stopped loving London, but because I wanted to experience adulthood outside of student life. I wanted to build a life that felt more permanent, more grounded, and more connected to the people around me.

Moving home has also felt different this time because I am not moving back into my childhood bedroom. I am moving into my own apartment, creating my own routines, and entering a stage of life that feels much more independent than anything before. There is something exciting about knowing that your life is entirely yours to shape. At the same time, that freedom comes with a level of uncertainty that nobody really prepares you for.

For years, life has been structured for us. School leads to university, semesters are planned months in advance, and there is always a clear answer to what comes next. Now there is no automatic next step. That is both the most exciting and the most uncomfortable part of this transition. Some mornings I wake up feeling motivated and completely ready to take on this next phase of my life. Other days, I feel slightly overwhelmed by how open everything suddenly is.

I have started going to meetings and applying for jobs, which has honestly been one of the most exciting parts of all of this. For the past year, I have constantly said that I cannot wait to start working and finally use everything I have spent years learning. There is something very motivating about stepping into rooms where university no longer feels theoretical. At the same time, there is also vulnerability in starting from the beginning again and not knowing exactly where you will end up.

I think a lot of people experience this period in a similar way, even if nobody talks about it honestly enough. There is so much focus on graduation being exciting and empowering that people rarely mention the uncertainty that comes with it. The reality is that finishing one version of your life before the next one has properly started can feel disorienting. You are no longer where you were, but you are not fully where you are going yet either.

Still, I think there is something refreshing about not knowing exactly what comes next. There is freedom in realizing that your life is not already decided for you. For the first time in a long time, the direction is entirely mine to choose. That feels intimidating, but it also feels like the beginning of something.

xx,

HM