The inevitable signs of…

I scrutinised my instagram photo, tried a different filter, well that does the trick but also completely whites out my face…bah.

Inescapably, vanity is a part of any social-media obsessed, 20-something woman’s life but this was not a mere run of the mill posing issue.

This was because I had noticed just below my eye…a …I can barely type it, wrinkle. The inevitable process of ageing, reminding me that all those presents to my mum and nan of Olay Ulay may soon be on my own shopping list.

Angry cat face, perhaps I should take up yoga if it means I’ll be less scowly and therefore wrinkle-free…

I always felt pretty Buddhist about the whole ageing process. You know, it happens, get over it. Enjoy the moment, carpe diem… Well that can GO OUT THE WINDOW whilst I look for some filler for this wrinkle monstrosity.

My ex was obsessed with time and always trying to fit more in, but as a result he always seemed like a petulant child who was never happy. I, on the other hand, always claimed to look forward to the ageing process. Hey, I already watch more Agatha Christie than most 70 year olds, gin is my drink of choice and I absolutely love cats (queue crazy cat lady gibes)

And to be honest, despite the obvious physical changes, I don’t think much changes in the head…

I always expected to feel different but I’ve actually felt pretty much the same since I was about 20 and looked the same since I was about 14 (as the recent post your first FB profile pic craze proved) new wrinkles aside…

Here are some things I expected to have changed as I “grow up” but haven’t…

1. Washing machines, dishwashers, household chores…

I still have no idea about housework and since blowing up a dyson, a sewing machine and burning a skirt to an iron, are all very real and terrifying experiences I’ve faced, I don’t see me becoming a domestic goddess any time soon.

As someone (very rude) once said to me, I will not make a good wife.

Damn. Life ambitions crushed.

2. Avoidance of phone calls.

Well this one is pathetic and makes me feel about 12. But I still have a panic attack at unknown numbers calling and will actually drop my phone into water, so I don’t have to make the taxi call… Why? I have no idea. In most other areas of my life, I am pretty damn confident and brash but give me a phone and I turn into a whimpering Snow White (but one who cannot clean, so just a useless girly heroine then)

It may be to do with, accidentally calling the police when I was younger but give me facebook, texting, whatsapp or face-to-face any day, I am not answering that phone.

3. Procrastination

Another one of those, surely I’d be more productive as a human being by this point. Nope. Not even remotely. As I work more, I feel I need to sleep more and find I have less time to function. My job requires huge amounts of organisation but I still find myself pulling the late-nighters, reminiscent of my regular 3am writing sessions at university for those end of term essays. Why they all had the same deadline, I do not know.

At least I have to-do lists now. Even if I sometimes write things I have already done, just to have the satisfaction of crossing them off, but everybody does that.

4. Bad dating decisions

A naive 12-year old me would probably expect the 25-year old me to be sorted. I was always defiantly anti-marriage, partly because my parents weren’t and partly to be provocative. I definitely made more effort to be an aggressive feminist when I was a child than I do now.

But I still assumed I’d either have found a reasonable man or at least, not been on about A BILLION bad dates.

Similarly, I’d have thought by now,  I could work out the players from the nice guys and was mature enough to want the latter. But as it is… I am still absolutely clueless.

At least there are still cats and chocolate, something 12 year old me, would approve of.

5. Still not having it quite worked out

Pyjamas at 2.15 in the afternoon, check. Chocolate cookies, melted in microwave, for breakfast check.

Not minding living in a scummy student house despite being a professional.

Need I go on ?

Chatting to my fellow female housemates over hungover breakfast, we brought up the age issue and how there is a timeline for certain things. But we all, unanimously, decided to leave all kinds of decisions until the big 3-0.

If life expectancy is going up into the 80s, then long may the takeaways and procrastinating about life decisions continue…

PS. Since writing this post, I have been out to a bar and forgotten my ID, which did not matter, as NO-ONE asked me for it. Bring on the blue rinse, I am set for retirement…