having your face sagging before your eyes really focuses the mind
I was telling a family member about a trip me and Chris are planning to celebrate my 35th birthday next year (and to ask her to babysit the kids which, given the fact that my son still doesn’t sleep through the night at five years old, is a bit of a tall order).
‘How old did you say you’ll be?’ she said.
‘35.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, Megs.’
How has this happened? How has this become the reaction to how old I am? I remember being in my twenties and having similar conversations that went more like this:
Them: ‘How old will you be?’
Me: ‘22/25/27’ (delete as appropriate)
Them: ‘You’re still young!’ ‘Just a baby!’ ‘You don’t look a day over 21!’ etc
I used to make jokes about how old I’m getting only suddenly it’s not funny anymore and now people actually react in horror at how old I’m getting rather than humouring me about it.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about getting older and all the things I have/haven’t done. I used to say I don’t have regrets, but it turns out I was just too young to have actually have regrets yet. I used to think like Jennifer Aniston: ‘There are no regrets in life, just lessons.’
I say: bollocks! (To both me and Jennifer Aniston, although I’m sure she’s very nice.) I think the denial of regret is another way in which we try to put a shiny, palatable spin on things we wish we never did (or things we didn’t do that we should have done). Regrets are like other bad things in life: sadness, loss, a sudden diversion in the path we felt our lives should have taken. You can’t force those things to not exist. You just have to learn to live alongside them and try not to let them overwhelm you too much.
(I’m starting to realise why people don’t put my words into nice quote pictures on Pinterest).
I’m kind of joking around. Ish. Can you learn from regrets? Probably. What I’m trying to do right now is to cast my mind further into my life and try to imagine what I might regret then. Future-regret-forecasting. This is a mostly pointless endeavor because as the last five years or so have shown us, literally anything can happen at any time.
But while I can’t actually know the future, I do know myself. I think, barring any catastrophic mistakes I can’t fathom yet, most of my regrets in life will revolve around things I haven’t done. Chances I haven’t taken. Things I said no to. And it’s those things that I can change. For future me! Who will probably have her own more important stuff to be dealing with.
That’s what I’ve been thinking about.
I heard somewhere that it’s better to set intentions in the new year, rather than resolutions. Pick a keyword and then stick to that word. This is, quite possibly, crap. But I’m giving it a go.
Focus. That’s my keyword for this year. Thinking about what I actually want and single-mindedly pursuing it, rather than getting distracted constantly by politics/world events/life events/spiritual crises.
This is quite a stark contrast to how I have been recently. If I could describe the last two years of my life the keyword would be ‘flailing’. Like a Magikarp, disappointingly emerging from a Pokeball only to flop around listlessly in a wild circle of panic. That’s been me, for two whole years.
Actually, maybe this is the way we should all do things. Pick a Pokemon and then try to embody that Pokemon for the year. Less Magikarp, more Charizard. Less Snorlax, more, erm, one of the Eevee evolutions I can’t remember the name of. Umbreon? He looks quite cool.
(And yes, I know Magikarp has one of the best evolution moments ever, but the thought of having to metaphorically and philosophically embody Magikarp for as long as it will take to turn into Gyarados is quite depressing.)
Raichu is still my favourite Pokemon of all time. He seems pretty focused.
Less Magikarp, more Raichu. I might stick that on Pinterest.
What am I talking about? Focusing. That’s it. I’m going to focus this year. I’m getting older and more wrinkly and to be honest, I’m quite enjoying it. There are good things to getting older. I don’t sweat in fear of being I.D’d every time I buy wine in the supermarket, and also, I don’t care as much about what people think of me. Those are two good things.
Plus, it makes you think about passing of time. Life just kind of drains away without you realising it and then suddenly you’re a twenty-year-old trapped in the body of a Mum in her mid-thirties. It gives you a little push to try and actually do the things you keep saying you’re going to do. Having your face sagging before your eyes really focuses the mind, you know?
So despite the waffling nonsense of this blog post, I am going to be really focusing on what I want to do this year. Life’s too short to not try out new things. Anything could happen, right? My TN could get worse and I could find it harder to function. Another pandemic could happen. (PLEASE DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN.) I’m going to knuckle down and try really hard to make my dreams come true.
Starting from now, after I find a funny picture of Magikarp for this blog post.
