Goodbye 22

At St Pancras Station (where I began my last birthday) a few weeks ago.

Last year, I spent my birthday in Paris. Exactly a year ago, I wrapped up on the morning of the 16th and bundled myself into my frosty car. I picked up two pals and drove into the city to the particularly fine selection Magic FM were playing at 5am. St Pancras station was busy, and we ate croissants while watching the panicked people, apparently unable to hold off on the pastries until we arrived in croissant country.

This post was initially supposed to be similar to last year's one, which you can read here. It was supposed to be a note to myself this time last year, telling me what I could expect from the year ahead. For various reasons, I am really struggling to write about this last year. I'm a bit down this evening, and frustrated with myself for feeling low when I want to write this wonderful post about all the fab things this year has brought me. Part of it is because I get frustrated that no matter how much I write I could never take you inside my head and see my story how I see it. I'll just try and give you a glimpse.

You'll start the year staring at the glittering Eiffel tower from chilly steps, and I wish I could tell you when you'll be here next, and who you'll be with. You're going to spend more money than anyone should ever spend on a birthday party themed on themselves. You're going to go home for the holidays, and in the middle of arguments about Christmas traditions, you'll realise you have a new one. And even if it seems sad, working Christmas eve in the restaurant you opened 3 years ago is part of your Christmas now. You'll be so excited for the first night out back at uni that you'll slip over in a swamp, fur coat and plastic 2016 glasses and all. Your friends are the greatest and they'll wipe all the mud off you while you laugh on the floor. You'll be kicked in the face with memories of incidents you thought you'd left behind. You'll run away from feeling shitty about boys only to be confronted by a much shittier one. On a January night you'll decide to feng shui your room. You'll set about dragging the furniture around, rearranging everything, and it won't occur to you that the boy that helps you do it might be a better choice than the ones you keep running in to. You'll throw yourself into activities in the hope it can be 'something to put on your CV', and it will turn out to give you a purpose and a community you didn't know you needed. You'll kiss someone with the most dubious thought running through your head - 'well I may as well just see'. You'll snap at your mum that 'no one gets paid to write nowadays' and call her 2 weeks later with news of your new paid writing job. You'll forgive and realise that your instincts are usually right, that your sense of fairness and judgement shouldn't be hampered by any outside forces. You'll take a look over a city of the tiniest stars from the Shard with your siblings who you now know are the most wonderful people to ever exist. You'll run an event where people from all different places are talking about power and the media and poetry and you'll feel like you're an inch closer to being who you think you want to be. You'll explore Thailand with your family and the arguments about directions and where to eat will be worth it when a lizard shits on your brother. You'll head off to Paris and it won't be cringey it'll be fun and you'll get a bit tipsy at dinner in the Eiffel tower and witness a proposal you can't stop laughing about even now. You'll invite one of your inspirations to write to a event and she'll come and be delightful and you'll all drink wine. You'll run yourself down trying to do everything and see everyone you want to in your last year at university. Your nights outs seem to have a new routine now, where you all head back to one house, probably because you know time is running out and you're willing to peel back eyelids and stifle yawns to be there for every laugh.

You won't know the importance of this year for a few more years. You slept snug in a bed with two of your best pals last night and marvelled at how different everything is to when you imagined it at the beginning of your friendships. When I wrote last years version of this post I was so sure I knew all the narratives and where the chapters ended and how it made a story. And I was so absolutely wrong. So this year I'm stopping short of that. This year I'm just going to talk about something I am sure of. This year I've become more grateful for everything I have than I've ever been before, and with that, terrified it's going to be taken away. I recently returned home when I was a bit down, and thought I may as well pick up some extra shifts. I went to work miserable, and left happy. I left so grateful for the people I work with, and resolved to really appreciate it next time I came home to work. A week later I walked back through those doors, a little tired, but ready to fulfil the promise to myself that I'd appreciate the little extra family I have there. And immediately, one of the people who makes my work so great told me she was leaving, and that these would be my last shifts with her. Is my fear that everything's about to be taken away from me part of getting old? I have no idea, I just know I'm going to work so hard to make amends for everything I've ever wasted or thrown away or been blind to. 

Getting rid of credit card debt when you're on limited income is tough, and I'm pretty proud of myself that last night was the first time I've ordered clothes since August. I have the packages lined up at the end of my bed, to be opened and tried on as presents to myself in the morning. Like I said, I've become more grateful for what I have this year than ever before and if, the day before my 24th birthday, I still have everything I have now, well that's all I've ever wanted anyway. 

x

Ps. I fixed my blues with this post. Thank you to everyone who played a part in my 22nd year!