A blog by Pepetoe.

If you’ve been feeling disconnected, uncertain, or like everyone else seems to have their life together while you’re still trying to figure things out, you’re not alone.

Mel Robbins calls this moment we’re all living through “The Great Scattering.” It’s that sense that everyone – friends, family, colleagues – has drifted apart since the 2020 pandemic. Not necessarily because of conflict, but because life has simply moved. We all got scattered.

What “The Great Scattering” Really Means

Mel describes The Great Scattering as the period after the pandemic when everything changed: our routines, priorities, relationships, and sense of connection. Suddenly, the world opened back up, but so much of what once felt familiar no longer fit.

Friends moved away, jobs shifted, people found new versions of themselves. For the first time, many of us realised how fragile our sense of belonging could be. The rhythm of our lives, the plans, the people, the predictability, disappeared.

But The Great Scattering isn’t just about physical distance. It’s emotional. It’s the quiet drift between who you were and who you’re becoming.

Why It Hits Hard in Your 20s

Your twenties are weird. They’re beautiful, confusing, exhausting, and full of change. For most of your life, things have been mapped out – school, exams, maybe university, a job, friendships built on proximity and routine. But now? There’s no map.

Suddenly, everyone is on their own timeline. Some friends are getting engaged while others are still figuring out what they even want from life. Some are buying houses, some are moving back home. Some are thriving in their careers; others are starting over for the third time.

It’s easy to look around and think you’re falling behind. But the truth is: you’re not. This is the first time in your life that there’s no “right” way to do it. Everyone’s just trying to build a life they love, in their own way, at their own pace.

Change feels uncomfortable because it’s unfamiliar. But that discomfort doesn’t mean you’re lost. It means you’re growing.

Coming Back Together

The Great Scattering, at its core, is about disconnection, but Robbins reminds us it can also be an invitation to reconnect intentionally.

We can reach out to old friends, start new traditions, rebuild our sense of belonging. We can check in with ourselves, and ask what actually feels right for this season of our lives, instead of what we think we’re supposed to be doing.

Reconnection doesn’t have to look dramatic. It’s small things: sending that text, making coffee plans, calling someone just to say you miss them. It’s showing up again, even when it feels awkward.

Because as much as we’ve scattered, we can always find our way back.

A Gentle Reminder

If you’re in your 20s and feel like you’re floating… you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. Growth looks like confusion sometimes. Healing looks like solitude. And building a life you love often starts with being brave enough to not have it all figured out yet.

The Great Scattering isn’t the end of connection. It’s the messy middle between who we were and who we’re becoming. And maybe, just maybe, it’s teaching us that we were never really lost, just finding our way back home.

Xo Pepetoe.