What if obstacles aren't setbacks, but signposts?

On broken dreams, changing paths and the cycle of 5s.

They say your body regenerates all of its cells every seven years— that, biologically, you become a completely new person.
It turns out that’s not actually true, but I’ve begun to notice what I call the Cycle of 5s.

Every five years or so, something shifts. It’s rarely dramatic— more of a slow realignment, something hingeing behind the scenes. A gradual transition of age and identity shaped by time, like water carving rock.

When I was six, I cried all night on the eve of birthday because I wanted to be five forever. My dad joked that each year I would wake up with a new personality— and maybe, at that age, I did. But the changes I’ve felt through my twenties have been quieter, more gradual. And as I now cross the threshold into thirty, I feel something shifting again.

I’ve never subscribed to the “I’m 30 now, time to start xyz” mentality. I don't believe identity should be shaped by numbers, nor will I ever define who I am and what I should or shouldn’t be doing by my age. But a decade on from entering my twenties, it’s impossible not to take stock.

My early twenties were spent in motion. Four years of intense travel, returning only to work three jobs and save enough to leave again. While my peers began to settle— into careers, relationships, families, mortgages— my late twenties were focused on how to sustain this life.

I was building too, just in a different direction.

I thought I had it figured out.

Four years ago, I began planning the ultimate roadtrip— across continents, across time zones, across my own sense of self. I mapped the route, plotting out landscapes and experiences, even designing my dream van in my head to soothe myself to sleep. I was fully invested in this vision for my future; this journey was my everything. I poured every hard-earned pound and moment of thought into it.

But I made one mistake: I trusted someone else to build my dream.

We handed the van over to a garage who promised to bring the ambitious project to life. Delays snowballed from weeks into months. Bills racked up. Promises were broken. Progress was glacial, and eventually stopped altogether. After 18 months and £12,000, we pulled the project. Almost nothing had been built. We’d lost a lot of money, but worse still we’d lost our most valuable assets: time, and freedom.

As I sit here writing this now my van sits on the driveway like two halves of a broken dream. I’ve been wallowing in pessimism and grieving for my lost freedom. Without a journey to look forward to the walls of stationary life folded in around me and left me in a place of dark despair. I thrive on optimism and hope for the future, and with that stripped away I’m left holding up pieces of myself I don’t recognise, pieces that belong to a life I chose to leave behind– one that now confronts me.

I don’t know if the van will ever be built.

I don’t know if my dream trip will ever be realised.

But lately I’ve been thinking about that five-year shift again, and what’s changed as I crossed that threshold into 30.

Because maybe what’s changed isn’t just the project. Maybe it’s me.

I believe in following the path that feels right. But I also believe in having the courage to change that path when it no longer serves you. And that takes more strength than sticking to it blindly.

The 26-year-old me who bought that van and drove it home was full of wide-eyed certainty. And I wonder had this boulder not rolled onto our path if she would still happily be walking it, or if the one I’m walking now, albeit a rocky and unknown one, is the path that leads to truth. Maybe they both do. As I enter this next five-year shift, I suppose it was always going to meander in unexpected ways, forcing me to either adapt or abandon.

I don’t want to lose her hope and optimism— but I also can’t ignore what’s stirring in me now. If it weren’t for this hurdle, maybe I’d still be chasing that same dream without ever stopping to ask whether it still belongs to me.

I’ve cycled through every emotion these past weeks— stress, anger, despair, bitterness, hope, grief– finally arriving at something quieter: a kind of sad acceptance. But inside that sadness, there’s a flicker of clarity.

Am I at the point of leaving the path I’m on? Does it still serve me?

Or has this boulder rolled onto it to force me to detour, take stock, and face a new, unfamiliar challenge ahead, one that leaves me stronger and wiser?

What will be my story?

I don’t know yet. It’s still being written.

And maybe that’s what the Cycle of 5s really is— not becoming someone new, but uncovering deeper layers of who you’ve always been.

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–Lucy