Well, here we are again. It’s a Tuesday night, I’m huddled in bed, listening to the dulcet tones of my flat’s hamster-powered electric heaters as they battle valiantly with a Scottish winter to keep approximately 2sq ft of the room warm, and I’m annoyed about society.
Nothing new there.
Except that for me, this is no ordinary Tuesday. This, my dear reader, is the last night I spend in this rented room before moving into my very own, marginally less creaky, nicer-smelling flat.
One that I will be privileged enough to call mine.
That’s right. Despite what every Vice article of the last five years would have you believe, this bona fide millennial has purchased some property. I’m just as shocked as you are; I truly never thought this day would come.
I also never really wanted it to.
Call it Peter Pan syndrome, call it being a ‘Chandler’, call it growing up with a looming sense of existential dread caused by the seemingly insurmountable climate crisis, but I’ve never been in a hurry to grow up.
I’ve spent most of my adulthood squirming through the milestones time’s flung my way, and avoiding anything that sounds like that dirtiest of words to the Romantic psyche – ‘commitment’.
Maybe it’s a symptom of humans at the apex of mass-consumerism, or maybe it’s just good old human nature, but as a child of the ‘90s, I was raised to believe I could, and should, Have It All.
Like a kid in a candy store – anxious and overwhelmed
Life was presented to me as a giant pick ‘n’ mix stall. And the key to happiness?
Get a bit of literally every thing in that wee stripey paper bag.
Get an education and a high-flying career of course, but make sure to have a heap of fun and cool nights out with friends.
Have a string of casual affairs, and also a lavish wedding before you’re 30.
Have kids. But only have kid-free holidays, obviously.
Be eco friendly; get a cool car. Travel, experience the world… but mind and have your own place.
Have it all! Because you can.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve been to a pick ‘n’ mix recently, but I have.
And do you know what I discovered?
Out of the 40-odd sweets in there, I only really like three. (Bon-bons, sherbet lemons and chocolate mice, if you wondered.)
But instead of filling up my bag with only those, I added chalky Jazzles and flabby cola bottles and those weird strawberry lace things that look like they’ve been left over from your auntie’s Ann Summers party in 2008.
I’ll leave the sickly metaphor here, but suffice to say, in a world where flauntable freedom of choice is the highest-value social currency, and ‘never settle’ is the Tinderella mantra for success, it’s difficult to actually choose any one thing.
Because to choose a thing? That’s a commitment.
And to the Have It All generation, ‘commitment’ is the sound of lids slamming shut on everything you hadn’t tasted yet.
Settling down has become synonymous with giving up – on your youth, and on all your other potential futures.
Don’t throw the (post-war, enamel) bath water out with the baby
The last few years, I’ve seen my friends get engaged, move to the suburbs, have babies, emigrate, start businesses… you name the big scary adult thing, I guarantee it’s on my Instagram feed, giving me palpitations as I struggle to be jealous.
See, although I’m happy for them, I’ve held a not-so-secret smugness about my ‘freedom’ as an unattached woman; a writer; an artistic nomad with the world at her feet, darling.
I’ve kept everything about my life easily changeable, from my job and my flat to my romantic life and even my creative pursuits.
I can’t commit to writing a novel, I’d laugh, waving a wine bottle like Bridget bloody Jones. I can barely commit to a weekend mini-break!
It has an air of mussed, devilish glamour, that whole schtick.
She’s a breezy character, easy to like. People enjoy watching her glimmer.
She’s also full of sh*t.
It’s not that I harbour some deep-down desire for the traditional ‘newbuild and a newborn’ trajectory – far from it, that’s still my worst nightmare.
But it’s occurring to me as I relax into my late twenties, that maybe settling could be the key to the sweet life, instead of the portcullis I’ve imagined.
Maybe, instead of clinging to the ever-waning potential to Have It All, I can actually just start Having Some Things.
Things like my own place, where I can paint the walls and grow roses, and the heaters don’t groan.
Or a city I call ‘home’ without choking on the word.
A job I plan to stay in. A cat, even.
A bag filled to the brim with nothing but bon-bons.
REBECCA BAIRD: Chronic outrage is killing my empathy, and I’m scared that’s how the baddies win
