Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
It’s my birthday next week and this one is a heavy one. I’m going to be 31.
Being in your thirties mean a lot of things and this pandemic gave me a lot to think about so, here’s a non-exhaustive list of things that are a pretty big deal once you hit the big three-oh.
- You cannot handle parties anymore. It’s not that you can’t do it, but more that you can’t be bothered to go to parties, go on a bender with a stranger, wish your hangover won’t be too bad (it will!) and promise you will do better next time (you won’t and you know it)
- You rely too much on people’s opinion. You can pretend all you want to be unbothered by it but, deep down, you are bothered. You want to be loved and appreciated for the right reasons. It’s normal, everybody does that — I do it, you do it and that girl over there does it too, it’s all about validation these days. If you have to blame someone about it, please don’t. It’s a waste of time. Ask yourself this instead; ask yourself whose opinion matter to you? Who do you want to make proud? Whose happiness your life depends on? And if the answer includes more than three family members and five Facebook friends, then you might suffer of affective disorders. Which is okay. I’m not gonna shame you or bully you to that, because I’m exactly like you. I so want people to love me and to be the world’s ultimate BFF that sometimes it causes me severe anxiety. I’m not ashamed to admit that I crave validation like the desert craves the rain. It’s what people say about it that makes me feel ashamed to have those feelings, it’s the judgement that goes with it and it sucks. And no, it doesn’t go away with age because when you’re broken inside, you’re in it for life. You can fix it broken, you can fix ugly, but it will follow you to the grave.
- Every habit you quit will make you feel SO! MUCH! BETTER! I kid you not. I drank my last beer at a death metal concert in February and at that time, I was expecting (don’t ask me) and it was good. Do I miss beers? Not really because I have switched for non-alcoholic beers and ciders and I gotta say, sobriety is good. Same with smoking. Apart from the one rollie I had the other day because of anxiety, I don’t miss it either. I really thought my body would thank me for this sacrifice but instead, I’m having some breathing issues, I sweat all the time and my heart is messing with me all the time. But, a small victory is still a fucking victory, so there you go.
- Netflix and chill take a whole different meaning. And yes, you know exactly what I mean by that…
- The older you get the less patience you have. That’s why I have been so fired up with the Black Lives Matter movement lately, because my patience for micro-agressions, race + gender discrimination and systemic racism has run out. Now, I’m pissed off because I want change and it’s not coming fast enough.
So yeah, there’s a lot going on and I’m not even gonna mention family drama, because I tried to do it on Father’s Day and that caused a rift with my family, so fuck it. All I am going to say about it is that it got me angry because in my heart, in my soul, in my guts, I knew that I was doing the right thing and yet, omerta won. In the name of stuff I know is bullshit. But as my partner said to me, you can’t change people. So I told to myself that when I will stop hating myself because of them, I will break the cycle. I will catch that family curse, look it right into the eye and tell them to fuck its own face.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s going to be my birthday soon and it’s usually the weekend before that I sit down with myself and ponder on what happened on these last fifty one weeks.
Before Corona, I had to deal with some extreme feelings. I came to realise that asking for help is a step in the right direction. My past traumas were making my job and social life very complicated. I was riddled with anxiety, I tried to sort out my debt situation (which has greatly improved thanks to my partner) and I was afraid that I wasn’t being a good person, a good friend because all I kept hearing from people is that it’s not enough. It’s not enough to be sorry, it’s not enough to say you’ll be careful, it’s not enough to hide things from people because Jesus Motherfucking Christ, it is HARD to trust people.
When it came to the trust issues, well, it didn’t go well as I lost precious friendships. Thinking about those people who decided that I wasn’t worthy enough of their time and love always make me sad. Because it shows that my guilt is not affecting their lives but mine, as I live with this overwhelming feeling and guess what, it doesn’t go away. See, there are a few things that don’t sit well with me and cynicism is not one of them. I’d rather be dead than ending up being so cynical that I say stuff like “no one is irreplaceable”. Yes, they are. I hate that concept, you cannot replace an adult human being with another one. We’re not fucking vegetables from a farm. This isn’t Farthing Wood, for fuck’s sake!
The bond that I had with that French Twitter friend was unique in itself and yeah, I feel shit that we left in bad terms last summer. So much so that I wasn’t aware that he died a few weeks after our argument, I knew it only a month ago. It got me thinking hard on death, legacies and how you cope with it. Same with that long term friend, when we first met IRL, it was like finding a new sister and I loved how we laughed about things, how similar our worlds were. I knew she was going through hardships and I guess I was too focused in mine to help her when she needed a friend. Without realising it, she cut me off and when I did, she asked me to never contact her ever again. Then a relative of hers told me that I deserved everything that happened to me. I didn’t take it well. That’s just a few examples, because I also had people I love telling I’m full of shit, that I never listen to anyone, that I’m an attention-seeker, a drama queen, a whining bitch, I think my favourite this year was “you’re the worst”. Worst at what? Fuck knows, but apparently I’m the worst. Worse than any Head of State, any killing cop, any virus, any polluter, any corporatist monster, any terrorist, any religious nut-job, any racist editor, any thief, criminal, bastard, deadbeat father, torturer, saint, sinner, rapist, edge lord, murderer, cult leader, Karen, homophobe, transphobe, xenophobe, misogynist, and any Red Hot Chili Peppers fan COMBINED. How the fuck am I supposed to sleep at night knowing there is someone that I used to know and put my trust on, who thinks that of me? It’s impossible.
Anyhoo, my point being, getting older is supposed to be an easy thing. But it isn’t and it doesn’t make sense. Does it mean that all those people who were older than me lied to my face this whole time? Because in my twenties, I had a lot of thirty-somethings smug-heads telling me how easy life is after 30. It’s gonna be fine, they say. It’s gonna be so much better, they say. Well, like my Sunday school homie, Thomas Aquinas, I only believe what I see and, after 51 weeks of being a thirty-something, I am neither impressed not convinced of the good life you get after 30. It’s pretty much the same shit that you had to deal with when you were a teenager but it’s much easier to get rid of acne than the extra pounds you gained because of anxiety, hyperphagia and years of hormonal fuck-ups.
So basically, I fought my way hard into adulthood, just to be going backwards again and have a shit time with myself, just like I did in the early 2000’s.
Great… That fucking cake better be good then. Because I’m not gonna be 31 for an extra year if this one sucks.
