there are these moments in life: time stops, only for a second, to remind you how much time has already passed.
this morning was one of those moments.
the thought sneaked up on me on my walk: i’m turning 28 in two months.
i took my headphones off, inviting the sounds of outside in. the wind roared, my restless mind embodied.
i had to think, to double-check the year, count it backward.
and there it was—the inevitable truth of it.
maybe you’ve felt it too; this overwhelming sense that time has passed without you realizing it, that the days don’t add up to where you are in life.
it leaves you wondering if you’re behind, if you missed something everyone else seems to get so easily.
that’s what i felt this morning.
i don’t know why it hit me like that, because my age has never really bothered me before.
i usually get annoyed when my peers complain about how old they are. i try to sound reassuring, but the words come out sour:
if you think you’re old already, you’ll be thinking that until you die, because you’re only going to get older.
it might be a bit harsh. but what’s the point of being anxious about something that’s never going to change?
you will never stop aging. until you do.
and i don’t think we will lie on our deathbeds, wishing we wouldn’t get any older.
then again, what do i know.
i understand, of course, that we can’t choose our anxieties. in that case, we wouldn’t have any.
i understand, because i have felt another kind of anxiety; a fear of not living fully enough. if we’re being honest, my age has probably contributed to that fear, even though i don't want to admit it.
still, no age has felt that big until 28.
the thing about 28 is that there was always this idea around it. growing up, my friends seemed to use it as a framework.
at 28, i will get married. at 28, i will have my first child. at 28, i will have a house, a car, maybe a golden retriever.
social media only amplified it—everyone posting milestones, inviting comparison, leaving you wondering why you’re behind. it makes it so easy to judge your own real life based on a fairytale version of someone else’s.
28 became this grown-up number. a time to have it all figured out.
i never really understood that, either:
having all the answers.
it might be because my parents had their first child at 32 and because they have quite an unconventional lifestyle, working together for themselves and being students until their late twenties.
they get up late and work late evenings; they eat dinner the italian way (10 pm) as opposed to the swedish way (6 pm). they got married at 50.
whatever it is, i feel they do it a little bit differently.
still, they met at fourteen. they didn’t have much of life figured out, but they had each other. so of course, growing up, i wanted what they had.
i wanted to find someone at fourteen, too. i was desperate to fall in love. to find that one person that finally got me. although the more i tried, the more impossible it felt.
looking back, i know i was chasing something impossible—not love, but someone who would finally allow me to start living.
because there was too much urgency around it. i felt like i was wasting time in my small town. every second i wasn’t spending with this imaginary person, in that imaginary place, felt like time lost.
always dreaming of someone else, somewhere else.
maybe that’s how all teenagers feel; this urge to get away. to finally start living in a way that feels true to you. when you can finally choose your own future, your own people outside the same small town circle, and your own path in life.
too bad no one told us what a hard time all that choosing would become.
fourteen turned fifteen turned sixteen turned seventeen.
still, there was no person.
nothing i’d found had come close to that idea i had. the one based on Carrie and Mr. Big, Damon and Elena, Ted and Robin (i’m team Barney, but the idea of them, if you know what i mean).
nothing felt like that, like the kind of love that’s immortal.
the kind that’s safe, yet dangerous. kind, yet completely breathtaking.
the clock kept ticking. the urgency grew heavier.
then, at nineteen, i moved to london. for the first time in my life, the world felt wide open.
i was living with my best friend in an outrageously expensive, worn-down apartment. we’d saved up money to afford the rent, which the pay just about covered.
we worked at clothing stores for £7 an hour, selling clothes to stressed-out tourists on oxford street, working for even more stressed-out people.
i hated the long hours and the way the managers made it seem as if putting clothes on the racks was the most crucial job in the world.
that summer, london was unbearably hot; the famous heatwave of 2018. our apartment was constantly overheated, helping the black mold along on our bedroom walls, and there was no talk of saving up for a fan.
i missed the ocean so much that i walked 40 minutes one way just to get some shade under the tall trees of st regents park, and listen to the sound of the fountain perched in the middle.
i’d spread out my obnoxiously purple blanket (the cheapest one at primark), lie down, and use my book as a shield or makeshift fan.
we barely slept; we worked overtime more often than not, we had to work for every pound.
but i had never felt richer.
we were free.
the clock had stopped ticking.
there was only tonight. making it through the workday so we could explore the city, or stay up talking until the next shift. there was so much to talk about, so much to see.
i loved it.
and for the first time, i met someone who felt like he belonged to another life, another story, like proof that entire worlds were out there, left to be explored.
it was new. another language. another continent. another way of viewing life.
it felt like the beginning of something. and it was.
although it wasn’t about him. he wasn’t a world; not this perfect, immortal love. he was someone who made me feel alive for a while.
and maybe that's what i needed at the time. because in finally experiencing something that resembled the idea i'd been chasing, i discovered something much more important:
that what i was searching for couldn’t be found in a person.
he moved back to his continent. the money ran dry, and my best friend and i moved back to sweden.
the thing was, something had changed.
the urgency wasn’t there anymore.
now that i’d seen it, that i’d felt something close to that thing i had searched for for so long, i knew it wasn’t real.
i had to fall out of love with an idea. and in doing so, i grew up.
not in a boring way, like i lost my imagination and hopefulness kinda way, but in a grounding way.
i stopped chasing love.
i had learned that the thing i’d been searching for all my adolescent life could be found, just not in the place i thought.
that feeling; it wasn’t a person. it wasn’t a magical guy who would finally open the world up to me.
it wasn’t a city that would finally feel like home, with dreams and thrills embodied.
it was living.
it was working hard to afford a night out with your friends.
it was experiencing a heatwave in a city without AC.
it was traveling with the little money you had every chance you got.
it was crowded subways and smoke-filled alleys.
it was writing poems on park benches at two am.
it was staying up at night to talk to your best friend, even though you had work in the morning.
years later, it was finally falling in love, deeply, inevitably, with every aspect of this one person, not because of what he represented. but for who he was.
it was finally knowing that life isn’t measured in years, or loves, or even places traveled; it’s measured in moments.
moments that make you grow. that feel so lived they come out in goosebumps on your skin, bubbles of laughter in your throat, tears brightening your cheeks, shaking hands, and even nausea.
what is age? if not a number telling you how many days you’ve had to live so far.
you know what? fuck age. fuck age if it makes you feel small. stressed. behind.
age can count how long you’ve been alive. it can’t count how much you’ve lived.
age doesn’t measure you. living does.
i’m turning 28.
and somewhere in writing this, i realized that 19-year-old me already knew something i’m starting to re-learn again:
maybe the problem isn’t how much i am living.
maybe it’s the metrics i’m using to measure it.
a life can look empty on paper but feel so full you have no choice but to notice every part of it.
a life can look full on paper, perfectly timed, appropriate for your age, and feel completely wrong in your bones.
on paper, my life is somewhere in between.
i don’t have any savings or a job. i live at home with my parents and share a room with my boyfriend. i have bills to pay, and i don’t know how to. not yet.
i am in love, but i don’t know if we will have kids or where we will live, or if we will even stay together.
i can wish, hope. but i can’t know.
and to be honest, i wouldn’t want to know.
i wouldn’t want to have every answer, if i could. because i don’t think that would do living any good.
knowing wouldn’t allow the adventure. the thrill. the surprise. the awe.
london wouldn’t be london without the hard work, the dirt, the noise, the rain.
love wouldn’t be love without the possibility of grief.
joy wouldn’t be joy without having felt pain.
so, no, i don’t want to know what’s coming.
i spent my teenage years wanting to skip ahead. to know who i’d love. where i’d live. if i’d finally make it as a writer.
and when i think about my fourteen-year-old self now—the girl so desperate for her life to begin—i wish i could tell her that it already had.
life was happening all around her. she just hadn’t learned how to notice it yet.
i don’t blame her, though. some things can only be understood after you’ve lived them.
this is me telling my 27-year-old self the same thing.
The way you wrote this made me forget I was reading about age and made me think about how often we put an expiry date on ourselves. Loved this perspective.
Can relate so much to this!! Fantastic essay as always.