I am definitely growing old but when will I grow up?
Ihate my birthday. I have no idea when it happened but I have grown to loathe that day over the last decade. It is nothing to do with the number of my age slowly ticking up like the dial on a speedometer. In fact I can’t wait until I am extremely old and can yell at young people and cut in queues at the supermarket with no worries about other shoppers complaining.
No, the reason that I hate September 29 is because it is cursed.
For the last five years at least it has been a day that brings nothing but disappointment.
I have been struck down with illness multiple times and friends cancelling plans to celebrate it at the last moment are just a few examples of things that have gone wrong on birthdays gone by.
Also for me at least, the lead up to my birthday puts me in a pensive mood and forces me to reflect on how the last 12 months turned out.
Did I tick off any of the goals on my list for the year? Will I have any memories to hold on to?
Fortunately my 26th year on this planet has a convenient asterisk next to it, given the obvious, so I’ve managed to avoid this annual tradition of wallowing on the whole.
But I have found myself circling this question: when will I actually become a grown up?
Is there a ceremony? Do you get presented with a medal or a certificate? If you tick off enough milestones do you get invited to a secret graduation ceremony?
Or is it a feeling of transformation?
Will my power level increase and my hair change colour, like going ‘super saiyan’?
I am about to turn 27 but I don’t feel like I am a real adult. I feel like an impostor, like a child wearing his dad’s suit.
I look around at my friends and they are all settling down, getting mortgages and sharing pictures of their new house keys on social media.
While I am making Dragonball Z references in a column and debating which Pokémon I would be with my housemates, for the umpteenth time.
Maybe this is what being a grown up actually feels like? Or am I just a lost boy stuck in Neverland?