Sorry for the late post…the weekend got away from me! Better late than never…
I turn 26 this year. 26. My dad will turn 58. In my mind, my dad has been 47 for years. I forget every year that that’s not the case. Isn’t it strange that you often accept the people closest to you as frozen at one age? A handful of my friends, for example, will hit their 30s and several of Bradley’s friends have become parents. In my mind, we’re all in our early twenties, still fresh University graduates. The same goes for my Mum, who will turn 60; in my mind she is eternally 44, and whenever I take a second to remind myself that I’m stuck over ten years in the past, I come to appreciate all over again just how quickly time passes.
With that being said, I’m a bit scared of getting older. It’s not the actual ageing that scares me, but instead, this looming fear of wasting my youth, my young years. I hate being late for events, I hate pointless meetings and pointless phone calls. There are 24 hours in a day and I spend about half of those sleeping, if there was a way that I could be active through the night, I probably would do it. I feel this edge to keep going, to keep remaining active with my spare time. You’re very unlikely to find me spending a weekend not doing anything - whether it’s starting a new hobby, preparing for a dinner party, taking on a redecoration project, I’m always on the go (which mind you, isn’t exactly a healthy habit). Time, for me, is the greatest commodity, and it’s something I’m always short on.
As we enter a new year, I find myself becoming more and more worried that I might be wasting my youth. Am I taking enough risks? Am I having fun? Am I staying out and having enough late nights with friends before I have too many responsibilities? After 26, comes 27 and then people get engaged and have families and move away from one another and suddenly it’s just me and the baby. And for the next 18 years it’s caring for that child. I’m constantly rolling the idea over and over, conscious that this is time is slipping through my fingers like grains of sand; I have to make the most of it whilst I can. I want a life of excitement.
The dread of reaching my mid-thirties and looking back on my twenties with regret festers like a sore in my mind, causing me to fret needlessly that I’m not doing enough. It feels like the moments left for rest, are moments wasted. I want to attack my 20s with reckless abandonment, to say “screw you” to my savings account, to spend too much on plane tickets, to have late nights, to indulge in too much chocolate. To be able to look back and thank myself that I took those risks, is the most valuable thing of all.
However, at the same time, there is a part of me that is excited to grow older, to create a home with somebody, to set roots down and have a place I can call my own; to have a group of friends to grow old with. With young age comes naivety, foolishness and thinking you’re invincible, but maturity and learning to flourish on your own is beautiful.
The difference between who I was when I was 20 versus now, at 25 is so different that I feel like I don’t recognise who I was. I’m not even sure I’d like her if we met. I still retain many of the elements that make me, me - passionate, stubborn, ambitious, deeply caring - but I’ve also gained new parts. I used to feel lonely and would seek out the company of others, even if it didn’t make me happy. Now, I’m delighted to spend a day alone, to have peace and quiet away from the noise of everybody else. In fact, I crave my own company. I’m more confident in myself and more secure in the choices that I make as I learn more about myself every year and more about what I want in this life.
I suppose, in short, I’ve grown up. I’ve matured. And let me tell you, it’s been an uphill battle. I’m sure one day I’ll look back on this post and think I had the maturity level of such a cliché twenty-something year old, naive and simple. But that’s in a a few years time. As years ago by, I will create new experiences and with it comes knowledge, reflection, even tolerance. There’s growth in that. In shedding the layers of nervousness and anxiety given by early-teens, I feel myself letting go of my mistakes. I know myself better than I ever have.
Leave a comment below, does ageing scare you? Let’s chat.