W
hat has happened? How am I here
already? I always thought it was quite
naff to panic about getting older, but
here I am in a state about turning
27 in a few weeks. I need to calm down.
It’s not a “big birthday”. I’m young.
I am. No need to fret about time and
how it’s moving forward in the same
way it’s always moved forward, only
now, suddenly, years have passed
and ... arghhh!
The pandemic has warped time for everyone.
We are a hundred years older but still the same age.
I went into the Covid-vortex at 24, youthful and smug,
not too worried about burning through a couple of
years in lockdowns. I was old enough to have done all
the exciting things that teenagers and students were
missing out on, and young enough not to be worrying
about settling down, birthdays or babies. But then all
of those days happened that were exactly the same.
Life froze while the clock ticked on and here I am, at
the other end of my twenties, still young, I know, but
a bit bemused.
It’s not just me feeling it. “Nope, I won’t get older,”
my little sister said to me on the phone the other day,
resolute and steely as ever. “Covid didn’t let me be 21,
so I am certainly not going to let myself turn 23, sorry
Meg.” It sounds silly but it makes sense. The younger
you are the more meaning a whole year has (which
is why it was so important to tell people when you
turned four and three-quarters).
A quick survey about upcoming birthdays among
my friends causes minor chaos. They know it is absurd
to feel angsty because they are healthy and obviously
still alive, but everyone is suddenly in such a damn
tizz about turning older that they’re going to worry
themselves into an early grave.
“Full. On. Crisis,” says one friend. Another
feels robbed of her “hottest years”, entering
lockdowns in a crop top and reappearing in a
turtleneck. Another wants a two-year moratorium
on birthdays or a massive hack on government birth
records to fiddle the numbers. I had been talking
to my housemate for half an hour the other morning
before he sheepishly mentioned it was his birthday,CHARLIE CLIFT FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
MEGAN AGNEW
The pandemic robbed me of
my youth. Can I claim it back?
poor bloke, so I had to stick an old candle into a mostly
eaten croissant and give him the rest of my coffee.
It was pathetic.
I’m sure it all has something to do with the
monotony of the pandemic. Instead of moving through
the past two years in a regular, linear fashion, much
of it has felt like one eternal day. According to the
University of Westminster, 80 per cent of people say
their memory deteriorated over the pandemic. When
there are no markers — no parties, weddings or
holidays — time is distorted. “It feels like I’ve been
teleported here,” says one of my friends.
The other end of our twenties certainly looks
different. Some friends hunkered down so successfully
during the lockdowns they don’t now want to
get out. My Instagram feed is full of photos of
people I went to school with getting married.
There are a couple of babies bopping around
and a few whispers of “the Eggs”. “You’re firing
them out like billy-o,” I was told by a (male) doctor
pre-pandemic, during a check-up, as if my ovaries
were automated tennis-ball launchers. I left the
room without thinking much of it.
But then, recently, in the middle of the night,
I awoke, sat upright in bed, stricken, and thought:
The Eggs! Get them on ice! Which is surely a ludicrous
and unnecessary thought for someone who is still
well under 30 and currently unmoved by the prospect
of children. Actually, I feel quite pissed off with
myself that it came into my mind at all. The years
when women don’t have to think about the Eggs
— or being hassled by other people asking after
their quality and quantity — are precious.
I’m not doing anyone any favours by whanging
on about all this. We are already living through an
era of millennial “adulting” and colouring books for
grown-ups and cocktail bars that are humongous ball
pits. We have infantilised ourselves enough without
worrying even more about getting older. It’s better
than the alternative, as they say. But what’s happened
these past years is still a bit baffling, isn’t it? I imagine
the existential angst I’m feeling is just my brain
desperately trying to process it.
Why don’t we decide to discount the last two
birthdays? No one gets older. Lovely. Or we could all
continue having birthdays at the same rate as each
other, which, come to think of it, is equally as effective
as the first option, which, come to think of it, means
that everything might actually be fine. Forget I ever
said a thing n
@MeganAgnew
Matt Rudd is away this weekI awoke and thought: “The
Eggs! Get them on ice!” Surely
a ludicrous thought at 26
The Sunday Times Magazine • 5