No society, I'm not old

The breakdown that fed me a breakthrough

Nov 22, 2024

I recently watched comedian Rose Matafeo’s rom-com, ‘Starstruck’. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a great easy watch for those weekday evenings when your brain is perhaps functioning at 38% of the 100% you’ve been giving all day. You know the kind of rom-com I mean.

As I lay with a cup of tea positioned precariously between me and the laptop unevenly balanced on my duvet, one particular scene made me sit upright. I instantly re-watched it. And then again. And after the third time, I scribbled down an article prompt. I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Rose’s character, Jessie, implodes in a way the viewer wouldn’t usually expect her to. She has the breakdown that, now I see it, I realise was surely inevitable. Until this moment, whenever things had gone drastically wrong or she’d embarrassed herself beyond comfortable measure, she’d made me laugh on the other side of the screen. She had never let me see past the character I’d grown to know at surface level.

It’s quite compelling to consider how relatable this scenario is for so many (me included). More often than not, people protect themselves, operating a strict ticketing system to determine who is worthy of seeing what’s really going on inside. And when those with admission aren’t available, there’s no other option but to wear a happy disguise and plough on.

But keeping those real feelings captive like hostages, tape on their mouths to eliminate any inclination of their existence, will only make the captor slowly bubble up until something triggers their release. And then when they break free, emotion seeping from every pore, the person looking in may be completely baffled at the self-destruction they are witnessing. (That was me watching Jessie with my cup of tea.)

Let me share the core of the scene and see if you can guess the part that transformed me from couch potato to bolt upright:

🇬🇧 “I didn’t choose to move here [London]. And I don’t know why I did because I hate it here half the time. People are so mean. The air is literally poison”.

✈️ “Everyone’s like: “Go overseas Jessie, get your overseas experience”, and that’s fine, but I don’t have anything to show for my time here.”

🎥 “I work at a cinema for pretty much no money. I haven’t DONE anything.”

2️⃣8️⃣ “And I’m old now! I’m SO old. I’m 28!”

💏 “I thought I would have at least been divorced by now. Or be with someone.”

❌ “It’s my own fault that I’m here. And that I’m me. And that this is my life.

It’s a painfully sad moment to witness.

But, as you may have guessed, “I’m SO old. I’m 28!” is what shook me.

I am also 28 years old.

All I wanted to say to Jessie was “You aren’t old!!!”. If only I could transmit the reassurance she clearly needed through my laptop. I wanted to shake her back into reality. However, I soon realised what a hypocrite those actions would make me; for I have to admit, I feel the same way. I too am hurtling through my late twenties, fearful of all the extra baggage and expectation society wants me to carry.

I often find myself worrying that time is moving by too quickly, like it’s becoming a blur of birthdays I’m not quite ready for. Birthdays where behind the happy facade, I sit with the realisation that I’ve not achieved certain things the me from five years ago was certain I would have done. Things that are so tightly ingrained in society as the markings of success (you know the main culprits: buying a home, getting married, contemplating children, thriving in a well paid career) that, like Jessie, I tell myself I haven’t done anything because I haven’t achieved them.

It’s like I feel that I need to prove my worth and having these accolades against my name is the only way to do it.

The age conversation is a tricky one. I have it a lot. I frequently see it in people’s writing because it’s a worry we all share, so knowing that other people also don’t have everything figured out yet is naturally comforting. It removes the spotlight. It reminds us it’s not a race. And that’s great. But truthfully, I think what bothers me is how hard it makes it to simply be happy. We so often look backwards as a means to either ridicule or justify the product we are today.

Why focus on the person we were when we can just focus on the person we are?

I look back on photos that should make my heart soar in nostalgia, but instead I’ll taunt myself for changes that are simply a product of my growth. (“I could never pair a crop top with trousers like that now”, or “My hair will never be that long again”). It’s like the person I am today, cooking in society’s pressure cooker, is looking back on a younger me who was happier, more perfect, and filled with hope.

But I probably look that way because I was simply living, safe in the knowledge that I had a future ahead of me to use as I please.

JUST LIKE I STILL DO AT 28.

When I watched Jessie, I wanted to tell her how unintentionally funny she is. I wanted to tell her that she wears outfits I could never pull off. I wanted to tell her what a good friend she is. I wanted to tell her that London is polluted so the air is somewhat poisonous and the tube can turn the inside of your nose to charcoal, but how amazing that she’s living in a city so many dream of seeing.

Essentially, all the things she doubts about herself, I’m in awe of. I see the Jessie that everyone but her sees. How telling is that?

I don’t have a home thanks to 2024 serving me a house fire. And instead of doing the ‘sensible’ thing and using the ordeal to potentially buy a house, my partner and I quit our jobs to go travelling. And I’ll be honest, I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do next. It’s the best thing ever but it freaks me out. I get scared, anxious, overwhelmed, worried I’m losing friends, insecure. All the above and more.

But I’m inadvertently aware that this is probably not the picture other people see. I probably look pristinely polished. I probably look like Jessie did to me pre-breakdown.

Thanks to the society I live and breathe telling me what I ‘should’ be doing at 28, I’ll self-diagnose myself as a failure because I haven’t achieved enough by my 28th birthday. I’ll hide those feelings deep down, preventing them from ever escaping, but in the same breath, I’ll rightly tell other people in the same situation that they are fine.

Jessie made me realise that the only person judging me negatively is me.

There is nothing we have to achieve in life by a certain age. To anyone that says your twenties are for ‘figuring it out’ or ‘experimenting’, I say: your whole life is for that.

Repeat after me: 28 is NOT old.