Saturday 12 June 2021
Toilet Roll Archives (26): I'm 23 - now what?
On why I refuse to call it a 'trip round the sun.'
Hello all, this post is coming to you a couple of days after I intended to pop it up – I do apologise, this week (lol lifetime 😊) has been a bit bonkers. Hope you’re all staying positive and testing negative.
As a quick life update - finished the first year of my MA with a fat first (I call bullshit on 'working smarter' as opposed to 'working harder;' it really is all about putting in the effort!), I've rediscovered the glory of red grapefruit, and I've come home for the weekend for the first time in what feels like fiveever to see my friends and fam. I also turned 23 this week and would it even be my birthday/week/month/szn if I didn’t write a quick post!? Hardly!
There is nothing that makes me want to curl up into a ball and cringe more than someone referring to their birthday as their “xyzth trip round the sun” or – worse still – “Chapter ABC”. Don't get me wrong, I understand the logic of it - despite the wave of nausea that washes up on me every time I read it in someone's Insta bio.
I think it’s the idea that age is far more impressive when you refer to it as ‘trips round the sun’ – which I wholeheartedly agree with. As much as I joke about the fear of ageing physically (I’ve started using retinol; don’t ask me how it’s going (the 'uglies' are real and raw (skinned)), I’m very much of the mindset that ageing is a privilege. I know quite a few people who haven’t made it to 23. The fact that I have, and can look ahead to 24, 25, 35, 55, whatever, with this freeing sense of optimism and opportunity, is a huge honour. It’s not a blessing because I think that everyone should have the right to feel that way; I think blessings allude to ‘luck’ of some sorts. It’s an honour because it’s wrapped in this special, personal fortune that’s more purposeful than lucky.
Ageing is a privilege because it comes with experience and
stories – which means it’s weird that I grimace whenever I hear someone refer to
their age in chapters. To me, age cannot be marked simply by pages or chapters.
I think it does a disservice to those lengthy, incredibly loaded periods of
human development – at every age. Chapters, as exciting as they can be to read,
are inactive. They’re done, they’re written up, and they’re put away. It’s like
you segment that age, pick it up and file it away, as though 22 doesn’t feed
into 23, or 24 or whatever.
And if chapters demonstrate stagnancy, then I think ‘trips
round the sun’ are suggestive of monotony. It’s like a tiresome, mind-numbing “here
we go again,” which, again, takes the excitement out of the human experience. “My
23rd trip round the sun” sounds dull, like I’m simply repeating old
cycles. If you have had a particularly crappy year for whatever reason, then
the thought of having to go through that all over again in “another trip around
the sun” sounds kind of heart breaking. And then to file it away as a ‘chapter’
and not let that year feed into other years sounds boring and, let’s be honest,
pointless. Stories make humans humans, but to leave them as ‘chapters’
of inactive, sedentary experiences undermines everything we’re pursuing and living
for.
Weirdly, I’ve always liked those long-ago Nordic vibes of referring
to ‘seeing’ age via seasons - .ie. I’ve seen 23 winters. There’s something quite
romantic to it, if slightly archaic. It’s pretty. It’s also active and living; you’re seeing age
as you go out and experience the world through its seasons. Plus, it also means
I’m still technically 22 (hi TS (not Elliot)!) which means I haven’t just
wasted a solid year and a half in lockdown.
It’s all relative
obviously, and I’m not trying to shit on anyone who uses these phrases actively. Just writing down me perspective n all. Today we’re as old as we ever have been, and simultaneously
as young as we will ever be ever again. I think there’s so much to unpack in that
duality and to simply underpin it as a ‘chapter’ or a ‘trip round the sun’ doesn’t
do justice to the work we’ve done on ourselves that’s as ongoing as it is
concrete and isn’t as boring as it might risk being repetitive.
But yeah, happy 23rd Kerry. You're hardy closing the lever-arch folder and filing away 22. Chill.
