There is a certain age at which being a woman starts to feel like a performance review.

By 30-something (why does the pressure start at 30?), you are expected to have some things figured out. A career. A decent income. Savings. Maybe property. A relationship that is going somewhere. A child or two, depending on who is asking. A nice wardrobe. A home that doesn't look like you moved in yesterday. And, ideally, the emotional maturity to say “I'm choosing peace” instead of sending the paragraph you have been typing for 45 minutes.

Basically, you should look like you have your life together.

The funny thing is, nobody actually tells you what “having your life together” means. We just seem to know when someone else appears to have achieved it.

She has a good job. She travels. Her hair is always done. She seems to have money. Her Instagram pictures are beautiful. She has a partner who takes her on birthday trips. She bought land. She started a business. She is eating at nice restaurants on a Tuesday.

You look at her and think, Ah. She has figured it out.

What you don't see is her staring at her own life wondering whether she is doing enough.

Social media has made this particularly cruel because we are constantly being presented with evidence that everyone else is progressing. Somebody is getting married. Somebody is pregnant. Somebody has just bought a car. Somebody has moved into a beautiful apartment. Somebody is posting from Dubai. Somebody is announcing a promotion.

And then there is you, sitting at home in an oversized T-shirt calculating whether ordering food is financially responsible.

The comparison isn't always about jealousy. Sometimes it is simply exhaustion.

Because women are increasingly expected to be everything at once. Independent, but not intimidating. Ambitious, but still available. Financially responsible, but able to enjoy life.

Beautiful, but effortlessly so. Successful, but humble about it. Good mothers, good daughters, good partners, good friends and somehow still well-rested.

For Ugandan women, there are additional expectations woven into all of this. There is the familiar questioning about marriage. The curiosity about children. The pressure to make something of yourself while still fulfilling your responsibilities to family. There is the expectation that by a certain age, you should have accumulated enough evidence of adulthood for everyone around you to stop worrying about you.

But life doesn't work that neatly.