I am getting older. This is how I know:
1. On my walk to work, I pass teenage girls in their school uniforms without coats on. I, in contrast, am swaddled from the elements by seventeen layers of wool and sheepskin. I am not too cool for a coat, and no longer feel the need to roll my eyes and tell my mum to fuck off should she suggest I wear one.
2. After a recent spate of birthdays, most of my friends are now on the wrong side of 26.
3. I am almost on the wrong side of 26 and am still waiting for a kidney.
4. I actively look forward to getting into bed and wiling away the final half hour before sleepy-time doing the Evening Standard Crossword.
5. I no longer feel it necessary to stay in a relationship that I feel is redundant.
6. I no longer feel it necessary to sleep with anything male/under 35/breathing in order to validate myself/get a bed for the night/rack up my numbers/ensure I have an archive of funny anecdotes.
7. My friends don't live down the road anymore. In fact, many of them have defected to other countries: Anna is in Dubai, Fiona is in the Cayman Islands (NB: the running theme of tax avoision...) and Joanne is due to move back up to Newcastle which, admittedly, is in the UK, but may as well not be, since I have become accustomed to her living a mere eight minutes walk from my front door. Selfishly, they have all decided to go before I have had a transplant and therefore cannot have a free holid...I mean, go and visit them.
Do I envy those freezing schoolgirls, huddled in their tight cliques for warmth, and friendship? Yes and no. I have incredible friends still residing in London, but I desperately miss those on distant shores; how wonderful it would be to somehow recreate the university experience of never being more than moments away from their embrace. Yet I am overcome with pride and delight at the incredible experience they have bravely sought, and air miles is the price you pay. I suppose it is an inevitability that in growing up, we grow apart; not emotionally, we hope, but geographically, logistically. Soon we shall start to marry (Andrea already has, in exquisite style) and start families of our own, widening the gap ever more. I fear for my own capacity to keep up in this respect, what with my penchant for the single life (my love of crosswords and pyjamas doesn't help) and negligible ability to procreate...all I can do is hope that whatever path my friends and I choose to travel, we never lose sight of one another.
1. On my walk to work, I pass teenage girls in their school uniforms without coats on. I, in contrast, am swaddled from the elements by seventeen layers of wool and sheepskin. I am not too cool for a coat, and no longer feel the need to roll my eyes and tell my mum to fuck off should she suggest I wear one.
2. After a recent spate of birthdays, most of my friends are now on the wrong side of 26.
3. I am almost on the wrong side of 26 and am still waiting for a kidney.
4. I actively look forward to getting into bed and wiling away the final half hour before sleepy-time doing the Evening Standard Crossword.
5. I no longer feel it necessary to stay in a relationship that I feel is redundant.
6. I no longer feel it necessary to sleep with anything male/under 35/breathing in order to validate myself/get a bed for the night/rack up my numbers/ensure I have an archive of funny anecdotes.
7. My friends don't live down the road anymore. In fact, many of them have defected to other countries: Anna is in Dubai, Fiona is in the Cayman Islands (NB: the running theme of tax avoision...) and Joanne is due to move back up to Newcastle which, admittedly, is in the UK, but may as well not be, since I have become accustomed to her living a mere eight minutes walk from my front door. Selfishly, they have all decided to go before I have had a transplant and therefore cannot have a free holid...I mean, go and visit them.
Do I envy those freezing schoolgirls, huddled in their tight cliques for warmth, and friendship? Yes and no. I have incredible friends still residing in London, but I desperately miss those on distant shores; how wonderful it would be to somehow recreate the university experience of never being more than moments away from their embrace. Yet I am overcome with pride and delight at the incredible experience they have bravely sought, and air miles is the price you pay. I suppose it is an inevitability that in growing up, we grow apart; not emotionally, we hope, but geographically, logistically. Soon we shall start to marry (Andrea already has, in exquisite style) and start families of our own, widening the gap ever more. I fear for my own capacity to keep up in this respect, what with my penchant for the single life (my love of crosswords and pyjamas doesn't help) and negligible ability to procreate...all I can do is hope that whatever path my friends and I choose to travel, we never lose sight of one another.
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