Trenches
toddlers, roaccutane and adulthood x
Why is it that every time I have a good hair day, I have a bad everything else day? Why must I live in the present when I can live in 2012? Why do girls who used to shop at Lush, vape now?
Last week, I saw a family on the street on the way to work (she works? How retro) and their dog was off the leash, but their toddler was on the leash. It perturbed me deeply. I felt further unease because the entrapped toddler was carrying a baby doll. I find children who play with toy strollers perverse. Babies should simply not be allowed to carry around babies, it’s the equivalent of me carrying around a…legend? If motherhood is so fun, if it is truly child's play, then why do I try to avoid it so much?
My birthday is approaching, according to Facebook (I would not remember it otherwise). This particular birthday is firmly a real age, which is appropriate because I am feeling myself undergo a slight third-season-of-a-sitcom character development; she makes all the same mistakes but this time she’s self aware about it!
Despite being the youngest person to ever exist, certain elements of adulthood are creeping up on me. For example, I now have an ‘ex’, which I never had before, and I think it makes me seem like I have a checkered past- she’s a women with a history. I bought an expensive pair of shoes, with the income from my job (disgustingly capitalist of me) that I immediately put flat-footed corrective insoles in, which suggests a certain level of self-knowledge I never had prior.
I’ve been stomping around the city in these expensive insoled boots and my trusty brown trench coat which makes me feel like Anastasia from the film Anastasia (sans the American propaganda). My trench coat is obnoxiously long, like an attention-seeking bride’s veil. So, quite rightly, it did nearly get caught in the escalator at Tottenham Court Road Station. However, I do think that death-by-vinted-trench-coat would be an appropriately pretentious way for me to go, especially as I was listening to a philosophy podcast at the time (it was a 15-minute summary of all post-structuralist thought played at 1.25x speed that I’m certain Derrida would not have okayed).
The other day, I went on a date with someone who showed up in an identical trench coat to me, which made me feel uneasy in the children-having-toy-children way. Should trench coat people be allowed to date other trench coat people? Did our ancestors really fight in the trenches (in their coats) for their offspring to unironically discuss Marxism in Stoke Newington?
Another sign of my ageing is that I have a fully ruptured ligament in my left ankle. I unknowingly tore my ankle 11 months ago at my birthday party after having three pints of cider, and I have been blissfully walking on it ever since. Being happily ignorant is something adults do constantly, so I’ve clearly been very mature about the whole thing. According to the doctor, and reaffirmed by google (when I double checked that I wasn’t being professionally gaslit) ruptured ligaments never heal. This means that, although I feel immortal, I am clearly not. It also means that I now have a medical recommendation to wear boots, hence the aforementioned Miista boots purchase. I will now have a slight weakness in my left ankle for the rest of my life (please nobody push me over or let me wear platform shoes again!).
Other updates include my recent ADHD diagnosis (surprise surprise), which means that I now have an official excuse for all my prior behaviour and having a victim complex does feel very adult actually. I also discovered slicking my hair back into a bun. Why did no one tell me about this sooner?
And I am moving out soon! I’ve been viewing flats and shaking hands with real estate agents who hate my filthy guts. Yesterday, one Usain Bolted into the flat ahead of me and speedily turned on all the lights and lamps to disguise me from the fact that the flat’s ‘windows’ were pseudo falsified little things designed to deceive, as they do not, in fact, allow a speck of light into the space. He (of course it’s a he) told me that, if I decided against the pitch-black basement flat, I would never find a property this good again.
Despite this sudden onset of maturity, I have also recently re-developed a bout of my classic teenage cystic acne. Thanks world, I needed to be humbled! I went on Roaccutane as a teen and was warned by my dermatologist that some women (note- only women) have to go on Roaccutane again, aged around 24 (age reveal!). You were bang on the money Dr Granite! Three weeks before my birthday in fact.
The girls who get it, get it and for the girls who knew boys in their teens: Roaccutane is a drug that gets rid of your acne, but has a pesky little side effect of giving you clinical depression. Luckily, my dermy told me that I might get feel clinically depressed, but my skin will look better, so I’ll be happier! Genius!
With my newly acquired victim complex, my response to this acne was that of course this would happen to me. Post-breakup glow up? How dare you! So, whilst I might feel like an adult, for the foreseeable future, I will have the relationship status, skin and induced poor mental health of myself as a teenager.
Anyway! Enough about me! Poems!
Koi Pond
I crave a garden that requires expensive upkeep,
And an open plan apartment,
So open plan it is simply a field,
With exposed brick on the inside,
And a peloton sat by the double glazed warehouse window,
Or one of those standing desks with a treadmill beneath,
If walking at an incline were a crime,
Arrest me officer!
I want to be able to say that to people,
My therapist broke up with me,
Because she said we wanted different things,
But of course we do,
She wants my money,
I want spiritual enlightenment,
And a Koi Pond in my garden. A poem about people who describe themselves as honest but are really just rude
Whenever I wear clips in my hair,
Someone I thought was a friend,
Asks me if I'm finally growing my fringe out,
I'm untalented at keeping secrets I'm told,
The most consistent thing about me is my password,
I am late to most things,
Other than my period,
For which I have no conception of time,
And I worry that I would lose those closest to me,
If I started wearing barefoot shoes,
But I suppose that is justified.