I’m Angry Right Now

Age 7 - the age of joy, magic and smashing mirrors.

I’m angry right now.

I’m angry like I was when I was seven. I kicked the door of my wardrobe shut and smashed the mirror on the inside of the door. I’m angry like I was when I was a college fresher, and I threw a naggin of vodka on the carpet of my bedroom, and it stank for the rest of the year. Right now, I’m angry like a twenty-nine-year-old who spilt alphabet pasta everywhere, sat on the floor, and rage-cried.

Mostly, I’m angry that I almost talked myself out of writing this post because of the pure shame of it. I’m just going to put my hands up and say it: I don’t have a fucking clue how to do this life. This isn’t a quirky ohdearieme kind of lost. This is the kind of utterly lost where there is a chasm inside of my brain that should be filled with all of the things I should know, but instead, wind howls right through it. Basically, life has struck me dumb.

 I feel as though my life is moving forward and standing still all at once. You know that scene in Matilda when she’s discovered her powers and is dancing around the sitting room with stuff flying everywhere? I feel like that’s happening to me in reverse. Instead of gaining powers, I’m only gaining the knowledge of how little I know and floating around me are reminders that my car insurance is up for renewal, Reddit threads I never thought I’d care about, the eternal knowledge that my parents will never stop ageing no matter how hard I cry, and before and after pictures of what my thighs looked like when I was sixteen versus now.

 This isn’t a blog post complaining about adulting. Really, it’s not. I get it - by virtue of being alive in 2023, I have to care about crap like keeping my medical receipts and knowing where my birth certificate is at all times. Instead, I’m mainly asking, why the hell are we pretending this is fine? Is any of it fine?

I’m too old now to think that the rest of you have it together, and I don’t. I’ve met too many strangers who are also on anti-depressants to think this is a ‘me’ thing. Do you know that I took a break in the middle of writing this to force myself to watch The Fault In Our Stars because I knew I needed to cry and didn’t want that need leaking into tomorrow because I have too much shit to get done? Three months ago, it was My Sister’s Keeper, so fuck knows what will come next. Anyway, the point is that none of this is okay.

Age 19 - the age of fun, friendship and throwing naggins.

Life has always been confusing. I wouldn’t be a teenager again for anything, and to be honest, that weird in-between time in my mid-twenties wasn’t a great buzz either. So far, I’m not loving twenty-nine, so maybe it doesn’t get better, and we just get older. Maybe instead of becoming happier, we grow from clouds of mist into solid walls of rain - more sure of ourselves but still thunderous.

Years ago, an ex-boyfriend and I lay in bed. He studied philosophy and loved it like nothing else, so in the evening, when I would ask him how his day was, he would ask me whatever philosophical question they had discussed in the seminar that day. On this day, he asked me what I would do if I knew a train had two directions and no other options: run over one person or five. A choice has to be made. Back then, I was twenty and barely even mist - I was a shadow. My bones were hollow and vacant, and there were no substantial opinions inside. So, I did the most pre-having-a-full-frontal-lobe thing and refused to answer.

Now, I know I’d run that train right over one person to save five, and yes, I’d be sad - but I wouldn’t for a second think I was wrong.

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.

And yeah, I’m tired of having to withstand. And, yes, I can’t explain to a five-year-old what exactly PRSI is beyond the definition I learned for Junior Cert business. I haven’t got a clue how to get a mortgage or meet someone, settle down and get married and mostly, I haven’t got a clue how to say out loud that I’m not sure I’ll ever want either. But there’s freedom in that, too, I think. There’s freedom in tossing a naggin of vodka on the ground, watching it spill and knowing that you have the price of another one in your pocket. There’s freedom in spilling your alphabet pasta and knowing, deep down, that that’s the worst thing to happen to you all day.

There’s freedom in being able to throw your hands up in the air and say, what the fuck without a single repercussion. It’s the freedom of mistakes. It’s the freedom of being able to live only for right now. Now, now, now. Not this age, or this day, or even this minute - but this fucking moment. If I am only living for this moment, there are no before and after shots. No pre-graduation, post-graduation, no pre-best friend’s wedding, post-best friend’s wedding, no pre-babies, post-babies. Nothing but me. Maybe I learned that that wasn’t enough before I was seven and smashing mirrors. Maybe by then, I’d learned that crying because of anger wasn’t good, and to the world, there was no point in existing in any other way than perfectly good.

Age 29 - the age of certainty, freedom, and spilling alphabet pasta.

So, let’s throw our hands up and look at each other more honestly. No, I don’t have a clue how a girl I went to school has afforded to visit fifteen countries this year when I second-guess a Starbucks. Honestly, that freaks me out. And yes, I will post something on Instagram at Christmas, and I will be smiling, but I will also probably have had to go to bed in the middle of Christmas Day because I couldn’t cope with all of the happiness I was supposed to feel. I have also considered that being thin might be my Roman Empire, and this consideration is only underlined when I see another old classmate get married in a bougie church with her collarbones showing.

 And that’s just the truth. It’s not the ugly truth. It’s just the truth. From here on out, I’m done pretending otherwise. I’m mist and shadows no longer. I’m blood and bone and torrential rain, and it’s both fabulous and grim, and best of all - I don’t have to like it because I don’t have to be fucking anything other than what I choose.

Until next time,

Jens x