A birthday essay about turning 30 that will hopefully end with something positive.
I begin writing this on November 23rd 2020 with plans to publish it, in some form or another, on January 12th 2021. My 30th birthday.
I’d been thinking for a while that I’d like to publish something to mark the day. Writing these blogs has been one of the few highlights of 2020 and it feels like a nice way to sign off a shit year and welcome a landmark birthday.
I decide it should end positively. That it should be uplifting. That it should wrap up neatly and definitively. That it should, perhaps, in some way say: “it’s actually fine, man” to anyone else who, like me, is 100% totally fine with turning 30.
So I give it the working title: A birthday essay about turning 30 that will hopefully end with something positive.
But it’s hard, on November 23rd 2020 anyway, one week shy of the last month of the year, to think about ending it positively. That’s because this year has been, I’m pretty comfortable saying, a stinker.
Globally. Personally. Privately. Publicly. An absolute piece of shit.
So I plan to write daily. To edit it, adjust it, tweak it and tighten it, so that in about 7 weeks time, on that fated day, January 12th, it’s perfect. I plan to squeeze lemonade directly from the lemon and to find something truly positive that I can sum up nicely with. Then I can look back when I’m 40 and go “oh what a clever boy you were” and, if I’m really lucky, receive a DM from someone I went to school with saying “good work m8, keep it up”.
I write 500 words of deeply personal, horribly un-self aware and genuinely quite depressing text. I return the next day, on November 24th, and delete every word of it. It may have been my best work. It may have been the ramblings of a man-boy with delusions of grandeur and a hangover he can’t cope with. We’ll never know but it seems you need sugar to make lemonade.
I don’t look at it again for another 41 days on January 4th 2021.
In those 41 days, everything has actually, somehow, got considerably worse. There’s a new strain of virus, Christmas was semi-cancelled and generally quite overwhelming. (I only have myself to blame on that front as I begin the Christmas period with a completely legal but deeply frowned upon and very stressful fleeing of London before embarking on 8 days of solid drinking).
Either way, just days from my 30th and with the nation preparing to enter another 3 month lockdown, things feel as bad as they have in a while.
In those 41 days, I’d put off coming back to this for a number of reasons but mainly I just didn’t know what to write. The only 2 options I could see were a very depressing piece with an ultimately uplifting ending where everything is looking up and turning around. Hope is here. Thank you, Matt Hancock. God Bless us everyone. But that doesn’t seem right. Things aren’t looking up and life doesn’t work like that.
The other option is another top 5, something silly or, to shake it up, something profound and sincere, inspirational maybe? That’s a no from me, too. I have zero advice to give and I’m all out of list ideas.
I then clock that it’s Monday. That means tomorrow is Tuesday. One week exactly from my birthday.
So I decide to repeat the original plan. To cut 7 weeks to 7 days and write daily until the 12th. Just a few hundred words on different topics and see what happens. I tell myself I can publish if I want to.
So here, and I’m so sorry about this, ends the introduction. If you’re still reading, below you’ll find documented — following heavy edits and redactions — some thoughts from the last 7 days of my 20s that will hopefully end with something positive. Godspeed.
Tuesday January 5th 2021
Due to the aforementioned global pandemic, I don’t work Tuesdays. On those days off, my main focus is finding a job that will allow me to work the full 5 days. To get back on the grind. Back on my bullshit. That and Fifa 21.
My CV reads ok, a couple of nice sounding positions, my portfolio — a copywriter’s bread and butter — less so. Professionally, I’ve written a lot of words about a lot of things, but very little that makes me stand out. I’m pretty proud of the blogs I’ve written during lockdown but it’s hard to show an employer something with the words ‘Gerry’s fat dick’ in it as an example of why you’d write well about accounting software.
The only thing more soul destroying than looking for jobs is applying for them, especially when the next job feels like a big one. Penning a cover letter explaining that dog food has always been something you wanted to write about can feel ok at 28. You know, you do a couple of years in dog food before getting offered that job at the Guardian. I think that’s what Owen Jones did. But you get into dog food at 31? That’s it, you’re the dog food guy. Sure, play your cards right and you could be the UK’s premium authority on dog food in 5 years. But those ‘dry vs wet’ long reads won’t do you any favours when you’re pitching your short story to the New Yorker.
I realise I’m probably being ridiculous and apply to a job I’d been looking at. I type: “Ever since I was a young boy, I knew I wanted to write about sofa springs.”
I change my mind and turn on my PS4.
Wednesday January 6th 2021
In a bizarre twist of fate, I genuinely spend the majority of Wednesday morning applying to write for the Dogs Trust. I send my mum a copy to proof and she phones me and tells me if I get the job it could be a gateway into “dog food” as “dog food’s pretty cool right now.”* Fucking. Hell.
I spend the rest of the day thinking I should do some exercise. I wouldn’t say I’m into exercise but I am into talking about it. Like, I think posting your Strava stats on Instagram is embarrassing but you better believe if I catch you in the street I’m telling you how I just ran a 10k (but not how long it took me) and it’s totally no big deal.
Exercise is now very much about picking up the slack of a metabolism that’s taken early retirement. That seems harsh. It’s not his fault. He’s been attempting to digest a daily diet with the nutritional value and mass of a 3 piece suit for the last 25 years. No wonder the guy’s fucked. He’s like Wayne Rooney. Of course his knees have gone at 30, he’s been overworked and playing through injury since he was 15.
I go out for a run. Despite never being overworked or injured, I think my knees have gone.
*This is, honest to god, 100% true.
Thursday January 7th 2021
I work Thursdays but as I work in travel, there is no work to do. I still feel duty bound to sit at my desk for most of the day but that just means a lot of tiki-taka internet browsing; Twitter to BBC Sport, BBC Sport, back to Twitter, to Sky Sports, to Twitter, to the Guardian, stays with the Guardian for a while, to a video of Alex Turner saying interviewers’ names, then back to Twitter, Scrooooooll.
Next to my laptop sits my PS4. It’s a constant struggle not to turn it on and have my arse handed to me by a teenager on Fifa online. I bought it on day 1 of the first lockdown having not owned a console for half a decade and I can only compare my Fifa relapse to failing to quit smoking. Like, you do feel ashamed when you start again but it’s quickly washed away by how blissful the smoking is.
To continue the analogy, you also quickly reach a point, often when you’ve lost 6 games on the trot to some kid with the username ‘ISHAGMUMS2011’, when you realise you don’t love it anymore and it’s literally killing you.
My latest stretch of console abstinence began when I moved to London. I refused to take it with me so I could focus on doing comedy. I’ve all but given up on that pipe dream and haven’t written a joke in close to a year but I have won 6 Champions Leagues with Bristol Rovers so who’s laughing now?
Friday January 8th 2021
I wake up weirdly early. After an hour of lying in bed looking at the news, reminding myself how horrible the world is, I watch a video of Arctic Monkeys performing live from 2003. All is briefly good again. This video sets off a morning that sees me create an account with the Times so I can read a paywall blocked article with Alex Turner from 2018, read said article, get furious about Alex’s treatment in said article, email the Times to cancel my account, then begin listening to all Arctic Monkeys albums in reverse chronological order all before 10am.
I was so obsessed with the Arctic Monkeys’ first album I essentially tried to become Alex Turner. When every kid at my school wanted to talk like they were from a South London council estate, I was the only one speaking with the harsh Yorkshire tones of a retired miner. I even started a band and sung with a northern accent. I often think it’s pretty lucky the Arctic Monkeys were from Sheffield and not Beijing or somewhere as even in 2005 that would have been problematic.
I’ve loved them ever since.
I loved them when they grew their hair out and went all heavy. I loved them when they started wearing leather and sung exclusively about fucking and I love them now they’ve released the space based moon opera we all knew and hoped they one day would.
I re-read the Times article and clock Alex has a house in East London.* The rest of the day is spent trying to find ways to accidentally google where it is.
*I stood less than a metre away from him in a pub once.
Saturday January 9th 2021
It’s the start of my birthday weekend and fittingly I wake up with a hangover that really makes me feel my age. It turns out, however, nothing will cure that like coming downstairs to find your housemates have created you a mini pub in the lounge for your birthday. It is a rehydration sachet for the soul; an Alca Seltzer XS for the heart; a can of full fat coke for the mind. It’s complete with a Gumtree sourced dart board; a multipack of the GOAT of pub snacks, Scampi Fries; a lone bag of the other GOAT of pub snacks, pork scratchings; plus some cans and a keg. I feel instantly rejuvenated and practically burst into tears when I see it.
I’d say it’s hard to put into words how much I miss the pub but I’ve literally written about 1,500 words on it.* Yet it still is. I do. I miss it deeply and not being able to see in my 30th in one is tough to take. BUT, the lounge pub is a more than worthy substitute, especially when I’ve just purchased a 440ml Guinness glass too so a can pours perfectly into it and basically looks like a pint. Things could be a lot, lot worse.
I spend the the rest of the day playing darts and eating scampi fries and listening to trashy music from my youth and drinking pints that aren’t quite pints before cooking a huge Turkish feast. I’m quickly too full and drunk to write anything more about it. It is a good day.
*3,000 if you count the special Bristol version I wrote that Bristol 24/7 commissioned but never printed.
Sunday January 10th 2021
I swore I’d write every day for the week. This was a promise I couldn’t keep. In my defence, it was a Sunday, the Lord’s day AND it was my birthday weekend AND you’re not my real dad, so leave me alone.
From memory, this is everything I did/how I felt about it:
- Woke up/hungover
- Showered/refreshed
- Cleaned kitchen while listening to sad Arctic Monkeys songs/at peace
- Made breakfast and coffee/replenished but slightly anxious
- Read my book/smug
- Went on a very long walk with no pub at the end/my legs hurt but I guess it was nice to get out the house
- Came home and made a sandwich with all the leftovers and watched 2 episodes of Pretty Little Liars which is absolute hot dog shit and I love it/alive
- Ate another dinner of leftovers then lots of chocolate and watched the Serpent/piggish but content
- Went to bed early/bloated but generally pretty happy with how the weekend panned out
Monday January 11th 2021
Each day deaths’ bell rings louder in the ear of this once great stallion. I am nothing but fodder for the glue factory now. Oh, sweet youth, where hath thou gone? Yesterday I was a boy, a piglet, sweet faced and full of hope, rolling in the mud of life with joy and reckless abandon. Today you find me a hunch-backed hog, drowning in the sludge of time, choking on the swill of decay, begging for the butchers’ hook. One dreads the man fate will make me tomorrow. Shall I awake bald and blind?* Will my bones creak under the weight of wasted potential? Will my veins turn varicose, poisoned by the regret that runs through them? Alas, it may be better not to wake at all. To be preserved in time as just a boy, a young buck, a mother’s pride. Or may it be better still, kinder to the world, simply to retreat into the darkness. To hide away, a shadow cloaked spinster. It would be a crime to ever let the youth see me, for I am but a reminder of everything horrible that will befell them.
Lol. Jk. That is crazy though, innit. 30 tomorrow! Fucking hell.
*say nuttin’.
Tuesday January 12th 2021
In a fitting summary of how well this year’s gone, I spend an hour of this morning with my therapist. He rudely still charges me full whack for the ‘big sesh’ (this is a fun little way to make psychoanalysis seem a bit laddier)but he does at least wish me happy birthday. You can tell it makes him uncomfortable as incredibly expensive silence is very much his bag. I’m unsure if it’s worth the money but it’s good to vent. I’m fairly sure it would feel equally good to just yell into a bucket but it’s hard to find somewhere to do that when you’re in a shared house.
To clarify, I’ve been seeing him for a couple of months. I didn’t panic book one in just to help me cope with today.
Either side of the bucket, I’m treated as well as a big birthday princess can be during a global pandemic. There’s bunting and cards, presents with a 75% hit rate, a breakfast hamper, a very big sandwich, a family zoom, a friend zoom, a curry and then darts and board games. It’s another good day.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I began writing this on November 23rd 2020 with plans to publish it, in some form or another, on January 12th 2021. My 30th birthday. I’m finishing writing this on January 13th 2021, a day late and a day into my 30s. I’m unsure of whether to publish or not. It’s very long, for one. Doesn’t go anywhere, for two. Despite not being particularly personal it’s still quite personal and that’s gross, for three. It does, however, end broadly positively. It was a good day. In a dog-shit year, that seems enough really.
Aaaaaand if that’s not positive enough then it also turns out it was exactly 5 years ago yesterday that this happened in the Celebrity Big Brother House: