Age is a weird concept

I have this visceral memory of my first day of sixth form. I was allowed to wear my own clothes to school now. No school uniform. No tie. I could show up in jeans and a t-shirt and walk past the kids in the years below me in their uniforms, not feeling part of this homogenous blob anymore. And another thing we were allowed to do now was leave school at lunch.

Something felt wrong to me when I walked past the teacher who was on lunch duty to watch the gate so no kids in uniforms went out over lunch. I was in street clothes so I was allowed to walk straight past him. I didn’t have to go to the cafeteria to get food. I could walk up the road and go to the supermarket if I wanted to. I probably should have just saved my money and took a packed lunch, as that was a lot cheaper than going to the hot food counter and buying a snack, but the fact I was free to do this now wasn’t exhilarating for me. It just left me feeling uneasy.

I stepped outside the school gates with some friends and I felt wrong just being there. It was like I’d broken a law. It was like we were literally committing an egregious act akin to shoplifting or joyriding because I was doing something that I wasn’t allowed to do when I came to this same place several months prior.

It takes a while for your brain to readjust when suddenly you’ve been granted more a tiny bit freedom for some arbitrary reason. I was just as much of a stupid irresponsible airhead before the summer when I was 16 as I was afterwards when I was 17. Why wasn’t I allowed to do this a few months ago but I was now? What changed? I still felt the same.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve had more moments like this where I’ve moved through stages of life that people seem to think have these arbitrary lines of things you either can do now or should do now. More school gates moments. When I went to university, it took me a long time to adjust to the fact I only had a few lectures a week and other than that, my time was completely free. I had no strict regime anymore. I could do whatever I wanted, and what I ended up wanting to do was shut myself away in my room, read books, sleep too much and hide from the world because it terrified me. What was I supposed to do with my time now? I had this strict regime to follow before and yet now I’d been granted this freedom because another digit had been added to my age. 18 — strict school-based regime with a part time job at the weekend. 19 — show up to a lecture occasionally, but other than that, do whatever you want. Its no wonder having nothing to do terrified me. I’d ventured outside the school gates again. It felt like I was doing something wrong on a constant basis.

I came home from university at 21, and was met with another of those moments that was even more terrifying. Finding a job that people could basically look at and say “yes, you went to university and this is good enough to call yourself a successful person based on these arbitrary standards”. Nothing had changed. I was still just as terrified of the big wide open world outside the school gates as that day I first felt odd and out of place when I was granted a tiny piece of freedom on the first day of sixth form. The world never felt like my oyster. Because my life had been defined by these rigid limitations put in place designed to be lifted one by one as the digits got added to my age, every time I had a new piece of freedom, I felt like I was doing something wrong.

I’m venturing outside the school gates again now. Every single video that shows up on my social media feeds now are from millennials in my age bracket who’ve just turned 30. They’re comedy bits about how when you hit 30 you can’t do nearly as much as you did before. A night out and a hangover hits you harder. People treat you differently for some reason, and both of these things are true, but we are still the same people.

I’ve always felt the same as I always did after meeting these digit-adding moments. When the digit turned over, when I went from 29 one day to 30 the next, I woke up as the same person. Nothing changed, and yet at the same time, everything changed. Everything felt wrong now that I’d ventured through those school gates.

30 is the age when you’re supposed to consider settling down and having kids. A digit has increased by one, therefore this thing happens now — but why? I’m the same person I was yesterday. Apparently its wrong to have kids in your late teens, early twenties, but right in your late twenties, early thirties.

We seem to all be dictated by these arbitrary guidelines. One day you’re not allowed to leave the school grounds, next day you are. One day its fine, you’re in your 20’s, do what you want. Next day you’re wasting your life if you don’t do these specific things.

Its going to be odd when I hit retirement. Retirement age is probably going be 70 by the time I get there, probably even later considering the economy. Its going to be strange hitting an age and being given money for it in the form of a pension. Do what you want with it now. You don’t need a job anymore. The world is your oyster. Go outside the school gates. And yet that freedom has never felt earned because its never made sense. I’m constantly haunted by the previous phase of my life where something I shouldn’t do before, I should do now. Something you weren’t supposed to do before, you should be doing now or you’re not doing things right.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that age is a prison. It means you never enjoy the merits of it because you’re always haunted by the limitations of what you had before.