People keep asking me, “What type of music are you into?” How have I managed to get to the ripe age of 28, and fast approaching 29 without being able to answer this question? I don’t know… all I know is that I do not like Techno. I also don’t like Heavy Metal and Screamo.
However, when I say, “I like a little bit of everything, I have quite an eclectic taste.” it doesn’t seem to fly. How can I be in my late twenties, and not even know the answer to this? Are we supposed to be defined by what genre of music we like? I mean, I think that I like sad songs and happy songs, 60’s songs and 80’s songs, in equal measure. Chart stuff, demo stuff, all sorts of stuff. It just depends on my mood. Why is this not fine?
The other day, I was asked, “What is the speed of light?”. I haphazard-ed a guess and said three something, immediately regretting it the minute the words tumbled out my mouth (I got confused with pie, but what even is pie anyway, and is it three something or six something?) and when I asked, why would I even need to know such a thing, he replied, “Basic survival! What happens if you’re stranded on a desert island? Do you know where the sun rises?” I lucky guessed, “the East” and only because in an educated guess, the East timezone is always ahead of the West. I am doomed. How will I ever cope if I am to be stranded on a desert island??? Apparently, even Drake knows the square root of sixty-nine is eight something… I’d have never known how to work that out.
Sometimes, I feel pretty stupid. I mainly excelled in the arts, probably because I don’t like things that have definite ends, for example in maths. Why does something have to equal something? Who said so, anyway?
I keep comparing myself to others my peers online, and I am constantly reminding myself that owning a house, car etc, does not define me – just like Tyler Durden said in Fight Club said. And I also have to remind myself that what we see on social media is not real life. We are not in a race. I cannot keep comparing my chapter ten to someone else chapter twenty, so they say. And for every time I am wishing I was someone else, there’s probably someone else wishing that they were me.
But how can it come to be, that in my late twenties, I am still learning things about myself? I mean, I have only just discovered what kind of steak I like and how I like it cooked (FYI, I like a fillet steak, medium). I have only just discovered that I actually don’t mind my hair it’s natural colour after all of that time and money spent on bleaching and dyeing it lighter. In my late twenties, I have discovered that I actually do quite enjoy the gym and the feeling of satisfaction that it gives me. It’s taken me into my late twenties to realise that cooking is only really a science, and if I follow the recipe the way it’s written, I can actually produce an edible outcome. I have discovered that I actually do quite like some raw fish, (just not smoked salmon).
While at a boat party this weekend, my friend got into a conversation with another party goer, who told her, “It’s all about your thirties.” Apparently, you really realise who you are by the time you’re in your thirties and your twenties are crap anyway. Which is certainly reassuring because I am not quite sure that I have achieved any of the things I really wanted or expected myself to in my twenties.
I mean, when I was in my late teens, and I thought ahead to my future, I fully expected myself to have my shit together, yet it doesn’t really seem to quite be the case. In my head, I still feel like I am really young in many ways. It baffles me when I look around and realise that some of my friends of the same age are getting married and having babies. I don’t feel like we are old or mature enough to be doing these things, but yet they are doing them anyway. Even if I had these things, would they make me feel happy and fulfilled? Or would I be doing some of these things because I feel like I should.
I asked my Granda if he feels his age – sixty-eight. He said, no but every now and again he gets a fright when he see’s himself in the mirror because he still feels that he is really young on the inside. I asked my mum if she ever panics in some situations still, like she doesn’t know what to do? She said of course she does, all the time! She says that she tries to look calm on the outside, but on the inside she is having a mini breakdown.
And that’s the thing. Do we ever feel our age, or do we start to just chill out a bit more? Will I magically wake up and feel different when I turn thirty? Will my life magically start to fall together? I kind of expected that by the time I was thirty, I’d have a prosperous career, a fancy flat, savings, a pension, a car, probably even a husband. I actually don’t have any of these except for savings. But who puts these pressures on us anyway? Is it our parents? Society? Or ourselves? I definitely put most of the pressure on myself. I think its high time we just realised we are all pretending at life and we are all probably crapping ourselves on the inside about responsibilities, even if we are all acting Blaise and adult-ing on the outside. And if you say that you’re not (up until a point), then I think you’re bluffing. Maybe we should just chill out and enjoy the last few years of freedom if we still have it, taking holidays because we can and stuff.
So, the next time someone moans at me for not knowing what kind of music that I like, I’m going to just tell them that I am still experimenting with music from around the world, and that maybe I’ll know when I am in my thirties, if they’d like to come back and ask me again, then. I might even have a pension by then too.
GLASGOW GIRL GONE GLOBAL 