I hold thousands of these microscopic memories in my mind. I bring each one with me every time I see these girls. But as we get older, I am beginning to realise that I am not a ‘casual’ kind of friend. I never stood a chance as a casual friend. There's nothing casual about the degree of memory and emotion I put into my loyalty to my friends. As we enter our thirties, we are meant to be casual to one another. Everyone is busier and has new and different priorities, so we simply need to accept that we see and get less of one another. Accept it and become casual with one another. Relaxed. Out of touch to a healthy degree.

The truth is that being thirty comes with a meaning prescribed by society that I am not yet ready to claim. Being thirty will mean that I have finally shed my ability to make immature mistakes without their consequences sticking to me. And perhaps most simply and scarily, being thirty means that I have less time left on this planet, and I have to take stock of that. I will never not know how precious time is again.

Is that what we’ve gained? Maybe we never stop standing in the middle of a room with the hallmarks of responsibility floating about us, but we gain the ability to hold ourselves upright, to stand for longer. To withstand.

Maybe that’s all adulthood is – perpetual, relentless trying. Although, even as I thought this, I couldn’t help but wonder, when did we go from vision to spectacle? When did our every achievement stop warranting a round of applause, and instead, our mistakes and imperfections gained an audience of wide-eyed starers?