saturn's return

On turning 30 and the unexpected changes that are coming with it

‘A Bigger Splash’, David Hockney, 1967

When I turned 30 last month, I was telling everyone just how certain I was that it was the genuine start of something new. After my tumultuous twenties, I had a good feeling about the decade ahead – I’m settled in the south of France with my husband and two cats, which are already much better foundations than the ones I had ten years ago.

So imagine how I’m feeling now, less than two months later, unexpectedly unemployed after being made redundant this week, but bursting with more optimism than I’ve had in months.

That redundancy blindsided me, but it had to happen. I’d been unhappy in my job for a long time – I say ‘job’, but I was a contractor, so the event was entirely unceremonious. I got a Slack message from a HR representative I’d never heard of at 5pm on Monday, asking me to immediately join a Google Meet session. I did, and was told in no uncertain terms that the company was “scaling back”, and that my role had been “eliminated” as a result.

Eliminated, as if I’m a Squid Game contestant or something. I’d worked for this company for two years, enduring some of the most potent bullshit I’ve ever experienced in the corporate world, but keeping my head down and carrying on (as is my nature as a Brit). Their demand that we removed the company name from our LinkedIn profiles last year struck me as odd; some of their business tactics felt shady at best, illegal at worst. I told them as much, but what happened at the beginning of this month was the final straw.

My line manager reached out and told me that the higher-ups had suddenly changed their tune around AI. They wanted to embrace it, to “bring the company into the future”, whatever the hell that means. It wasn’t my manager’s doing and he was just as dumbfounded as I was, but we were told to cease writing from scratch – as a copywriter, that’s kinda my speciality – and instead paste entire briefs into Google Gemini. We’d then use the first draft of whatever the AI software generated for us, whether it was factually incorrect or not, and upload it to whichever site we were working on.

Imagine how undignified I felt being asked to do that, without much of a choice in the matter. It’s not like jobs in my field – a copywriter working remotely in France, but only speaking English – are easy to come by. I was promised it wouldn’t be for long, that they’d reverse the decision soon, and that I’d be getting a substantial payrise at the end of the month to mark my second anniversary within the company (and shut me up, I presume). I’d already started putting the feelers out in order to hopefully jump ship, only to have the rug pulled from underneath me way before I was ready.

It strikes me as very convenient that I was let go just as they began to use AI across the company. But, if I’m completely honest, I feel a lot less phased than I perhaps should.

This all feels like fate. It feels like something beyond my control is coming together, and I just have to ride the wave and see where it leads me.

You see, on the same day I was made redundant, I hit 10,000 followers on TikTok. That might seem irrelevant given the grand scheme of things, but it’s a notable milestone – hitting that numbers means you can start earning money from your videos. Your engagement gets boosted, your content can lead to genuine income, and people start paying attention to you as a result.

I’ve put a lot of time and effort into TikTok, partly because I’m an attention seeker who cannot keep his mouth closed. I’ve been on social media for years and I’ve always been pretty good at it – Tumblr was where it all started, before I went over to Twitter and stayed there for far too long. I’ve often gotten the attention I wanted in ways I didn’t expect, and they weren’t always good. I found myself in hot water a lot of the time, spending hours arguing with people, gaining followers off the back of being a brash, angry left-winger and often parroting what I thought was the right thing to say.

It always felt like I was putting on an act, and I cringe when I look back at things I posted even a year ago. Wanting to succeed on TikTok, as ridiculous as it sounds, means you need to be unvarnished and authentic. I can so easily tell now when somebody’s faking it – namely in comment sections, where people run with one opinion or rumour and suddenly it’s everywhere, because nobody wants to think for themselves. I find myself disagreeing with the common consensus more often than not these days, but perhaps that’s because everyone’s suddenly MAGA or homophobic (but that’s a conversation for another time).

As soon as I dropped the façade and started feeling confident in myself and my voice again, the results followed shortly after. I’ve posted videos that have struck a chord with thousands of people, and I think that’s because they can tell I’m speaking from the heart. Sure, sometimes I’ve got a script just off-screen so my ADHD-riddled brain doesn’t lose track, but I don’t feel the need to carry out research on what other people are saying and thinking to be able to provide my own take any more. To do that and finally have people hear me out as a result is so fulfilling. I wish I’d had that confidence slightly earlier, and it’s still a work in progress, but it feels so freeing.

Therapy has certainly helped with that. In my last session, we actually spoke about my online presence and how I always felt misunderstood. We followed it back to my infamous run-in with Piers Morgan back in the day and how my intentions were good, but the fallout was the total opposite. In the midst of being threatened, spoken over and thrust onto a public stage for the first time in my life, I had barely anyone to lean on and it messed me up massively as a result. My therapist said it sounds like I have genuine trauma from it, which doesn’t surprise me in hindsight.

I still feel angry about it – I feel angry about a lot of things, but with age, I’m trying to learn how to manage said anger and express it in more eloquent, effective ways. I’m very aware that in the last few years, people have probably come to think I’m a slight loose cannon. I’m overly emotional, I can be harsh, explicit and direct in my criticism, and I don’t always get it right. I told my therapist how I’ve been very overly conscious of how I come across online, and I think that’s why I find it so difficult to connect with people nowadays, even in real life – I have this fear that everyone thinks I’m a bit crazy.

But it always simultaneously frustrated me that nobody seemed to see my intentions, or at least take the time to try. I’ve definitely felt alone and isolated in that regard, as if I’ve been shouting into the void whilst people stand at the sidelines and either grimace or laugh.

However, holding onto all of those feelings also holds me back. That’s something else I’ve learned in the last few months. As I mentioned in a recent post, I hit a wall in November after everything I outran in the UK caught up with me. Having to face all of that baggage head-on has been difficult, but turning 30 feels like the right time to shake it all off and move forward.

And so far, 2026 is telling me to expect the unexpected. On my actual birthday in January, I was surprised by my entire family showing up in Montpellier. To have them all here at the same time meant the absolute world to me, and I couldn’t really fathom it until they’d left – it was the reminder I needed that I’m so lucky to have such a strong support system around me, even if they’re not physically close. It still makes me a bit emotional when I look at the pictures because spending time with my family is a rarity these days, and the fact they dedicated the time and money to come and show me love makes me tear up.

A couple of weeks after that, I was scrolling through my camera roll and came across a video I’d taken eight years prior – I had a car accident on my way to work in which my precious Ford Fiesta had been rear-ended by five other Ford Fiestas. I posted the video to TikTok, not really thinking much of it, and it got 22 million views, it was liked by everyone from Zara Larsson to GK Barry to Michael Barrymore, and I was even interviewed by PEOPLE Magazine about it. That week was like something out of a David Lynch film.

Since then, my account has kept growing and growing. I’m nearly at 11,000 followers now, and almost every post I make is a banger. You know me, humble as always!

In all seriousness, though, it feels fucking great to believe in myself for once. The fact I’m not spiralling about losing my job, and I’m instead excited about what I might achieve next, is really something. It truly feels like my Saturn’s return, and it feels refreshing to embrace the unexpected. I just have a good feeling it’s all going to work out for me.

À bientôt, mes amis !