25 Things I Don’t Know

Embracing uncertainty & indecision

I am an indecisive person, often agonised by choices both simple and complex. Should I live in Sydney or London? Should I stay home or go out? Should I move forward and let go, or cling on for dear life?

Despite my indecisive nature, I’m also someone who needs to know where I stand. I want my relationships to be clear, my choices concrete. I want to be able to feel the solidity of my decisions, to see my life fall into shape around me.

To this end, I often pry answers from people and push decisions to be made. I’m not sure that this serves me. Sometimes, I wish I had been able to live in uncertainty a little longer, to see what could have grown in the dark.

But in the last few weeks, many choices have been taken out of my hands.

I have faced losses and heartbreaks that I didn’t see coming.

“The Worst Person Alive”

There will always be unknowable parts of life. Some of them are beautiful. Some are painful. There are gaps you can fill, and places you must accept as unreachable.

This year has already been marked by so much uncertainty — in my own life and in the wider world. In many ways, I am blessed to be free and flexible. So many people have far worse choices to face, and far less freedom when choices are made for them. Lately, the fluidity of my life has tended towards the chaotic and sometimes, cruel. But it has also brought me so many gifts — dramatic love stories and thrilling adventures and hard-won lessons.

There are some choices worth fighting for, and others which require us to surrender.

In moments that feel relentless, it’s liberating to admit that you don’t know it all. Not even close. That any control you think you have can quickly evaporate. Being indecisive trains you for moments like these.

I have become used to changing my mind, to adapting to uncertainty. To remaining optimistic that another way forward may still be forged. In that spirit, here are 25 things I don’t (and may never) know.

25 Things I Don’t Know

1. Where I’ll end up living. I’m focusing on the present. On being grateful to have a family who welcomes me with open arms, a beach towel and fresh mango.

2. Why sometimes, it just doesn’t work out, even though you want it with your whole soul.

3. How to do a cartwheel. As an eight-year-old, this seemed incredibly important. I wish I could tell that little girl she could relax — nobody will ask you to do this as an adult. (I also wonder which items on this list I will one day deem unimportant.)

4. Whether he still thinks of me. (Probably this one.)

5. Why life can be so unspeakably devastating for some, and so unbelievably blessed for others.

6. A lot about geography. In high school, I was far more interested in stories than seas.

7. Why some people don’t care about other people.

8. How life can seem so harsh, even when you’re in the most beautiful place in the world.

Bronte Beach

9. Why people think ghosting is acceptable. Just send one text message, you coward.

10. What is at the bottom of the ocean. Like space, I don’t think we belong there. Some mysteries deserve to stay mysterious.

11. What happens when we die.

12. If mermaids are real. I have always leant towards yes.

13. How a sun-drenched, stormy afternoon at the beach can shift a whole relationship.

14. Why the world is increasingly violent and terrifying and feels like we’re heading for doom.

15. How to do butterfly stroke.

16. How to surf. As an Aussie, it’s the number one thing I get asked when I travel. My answer, “No, but I love to swim in the ocean!!!” is not really the truth. But when you’re standing in a room of eight bunkbeds in a Portuguese hostel, it’s hard to say, “No, because I wasn’t a cool girl who surfed, but was a loser girl who read books, and I now I no longer think I am a loser, but still think of surfing as something inaccessible to me, even though, I think actually, I maybe would like it, if I wasn’t so afraid.”

17. Why you can’t take a good photo of the moon. Although, maybe this is obvious. She’s an enigma. Leave her be.

18. Why astrology makes so much sense to me, but is so hated by many others.

19. How I got so lucky to be born into my beautiful family.

20. Whether I want to have a baby.

21. Why friendships fall apart.

22. How to forgive myself, fully.

23. How to love myself in the face of rejection.

24. Who I’m going to fall in love with next. I am hoping not for a happy ending, but a better beginning.

25. How many things I will never know.

Tell me in the comments, what don’t you know? And how do you feel about not knowing?

*This essay was originally inspired by writer and artist Mari’s list, 100 Things I Know. I pondered if I had 100 things I could share. Imposter syndrome immediately came thundering in. Every idea I had – writing a Hinge profile, baking a beautiful focaccia, telling a good story – was swiftly followed by a reason that actually, I didn’t know much about that thing at all. I returned to Mari’s essay and reread her first line again, “In this newsletter I’m more interested in exploring what I don’t know rather than what I know.” And as my week evolved, this piece did too.