I literally don't have a clue

...about anything?

Tonight, I spent my evening in bed watching ‘My Old Ass’ buried in a bag of dairy milk buttons (the big ones). I was recommended the film by a friend to whom I expressed that I was finally going to spend a day wallowing in the pits of heartbreak after keeping myself busy for a couple weeks, with the intention of doing nothing productive, and needing a film to match the mood. It’s a coming-of-age movie about an 18-year-old girl, desperate to leave her small town, you know the cliché. But, she’s visited by her older, 39-year-old self, who initially tries to protect her from making the same mistakes she did, but eventually gives up because well, life’s a fucking mess. It sounds cheesy, and kind of lame, and you’d be damn right, but it’s also deeply beautiful, and funny, and it has one of those Sundance Festival logos that pops up at the beginning which gives it that kind of edge you know? That indie je ne sais quoi. Anyway, I have gutturally cried tonight, from my belly. I’ve sobbed I’d say, perhaps even wailed.

As I reflect on a recent break up and all that I’ve gained and lost from falling in love again, and as 30 approaches in 6 weeks and I reflect on this decade gone… I don’t know if it’s the broken heart, the Saturn return or the inordinate amount of Percy Pigs I’ve been inhaling, but I’m struck by this profound and visceral feeling of not having a fucking clue. Of really and truly, not knowing anything I thought I’d know by now. I don’t know really know what my life is going to look like, I don’t really have a plan, I haven’t figured out the meaning of existence yet (ffs!), I’m still insecure about my teeth & I can’t stop falling in love really quickly. I thought that was all meant to be sorted?

This idea of a plan has been reverberating in my mind, this kind of fear that I don’t have a strong outline of what my life will look like. Kids aren’t on my radar, marriage has never been something I’ve been fussed about, I don’t have my heart set on living in one place and I still to-and-fro on whether there’s time to make it as a backup dancer (no). After going through a breakup that’s unravelled what was beginning to feel like a bit of a plan, which I suppose was just starting to share the not-knowing’s of life with somebody else, I am once again struck by this kind of vastness in front of me.

In the last few weeks I’ve had my heart broken, seen someone I love dearly go through a much longer-term break up, and witnessed somebody very close to me face mortality in a way that only happens when we least expect it. Amidst this kind of gloom and sorrow that’s come with these big shifts, it’s reminded me that whatever plan we make, it never fucking goes that way anyway. So I suppose this a reminder to myself that yes plans can be useful, and direction can be reassuring, but what matters most, to me any way, is trying to have a good time & loving the people in my life really fucking hard.

Now maybe that’s 30?