I am twentysomething.
My buttocks are firm; my face is shiny; and my eyes glimmer with hope.
I am the most powerful age I could ever be.
I am the kind of age people wish they were – both younger and older. Kids think, woah, imagine being twentysomething and playing as much Xbox as you want. Older adults think, woah, imagine being twentysomething again and having those nice firm buttocks.
But there’s so much pressure, man. When you’re in your twenties, Society grabs you by your lovely bumcheeks – without your permission – and says: “Right, here’s what you need to do.”
“Go on.”
“First, you’re gonna shag loads. I mean absolutely loads. Don’t ask me how, but you need to make sure that every facet of your sexuality has been explored and that rimming is only like the fourth most disgusting thing you’ve done.”
“Okay.”
“Secondly, you want to be chasing your dream job. Every moment you’re not recreationally having sex should be spent pursuing a career that will imbue your life with meaning, give you status and enable you to one day buy a house. To other people, your job title needs to be a synonym for, “I’m a better, more well-rounded and ethical, yet financially stable person than you.”
“Right.”
“Then you’re gonna settle down and find The One and buy a house and make TikToks together and subsequently dismantle capitalism and turn your house into a creative co-operative that supports artists from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
It’s too much to do in one decade. I’m pretty sure in the last decade of my nan’s life she just watched Tipping Point and occasionally went to Asda. Why can’t I have that decade now? People say youth is wasted on the young – maybe old age is wasted on the old. I’d love to spend my days watching gameshows and having my arse wiped for me.
But if I come across this blog in thirty years, there’s a chance I’ll read it and think, what a stupid, ungrateful little shit – try being in my position. And that’ll only be because nostalgia will make me forget all the uncertainty I felt about the future, and how adolescence still hung over me, the rejection and awkwardness of my teens still not fully processed and twatted out of my system.
I’ve already developed that same nostalgia I’m complaining about. I watched two coming-of-age films recently: The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Booksmart. Those films are about 16-18 year-old American teenagers in high-school. The main characters are awkward but then they realise that life is all about partying and losing your virginity but at the same staying true to yourself and developing unbreakable friendships with people. My experience was nothing like this – I mainly just stayed inside and felt stressed about my A-levels. But still I wish I could go back and seize all the opportunity that lay before me.
Nothing is as good as it looks in hindsight. Hindsight is like an Insta filter that makes everything look proper fit, but when you see it, it’s pretty butters. I even think we’ll have nostalgia for the Coronavirus in years to come. People will reminisce about how we all came together and how much of a laugh it was. When the next pandemic comes, we’ll tell younger people “enjoy it, these are some of the best years of your life.”
I dunno. Maybe I am being an ungrateful little shit and that and, in a few years, I’ll realise what everyone is talking about when they say how amazing being in your twenties is. I guess my gripe is, if it is so good, then why is it that you only realise it decades later. I wouldn’t watch a film if I knew it would only hit me thirty years later how good it was.
Actually, maybe I would. That sounds cool. Bad example.
Either way, time will keep on relentlessly marching forward, so I’ll find out for myself. I’ll peak physically, become increasingly technologically illiterate and give up on all my hopes and dreams.
Soon youth will be over and I will be able to turn to the next phase of my life: regret.
Sweet, sweet regret.
Anyway, that’s about it.
Cya x
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