The Twenties End

This is the last day of my twenties.

When I was in my late teens life was mine, always. There was no death, no injury, no fatigue, no regret. There would be a pill for everlasting youth, a smoothness beneath the eyes where others would wrinkle, a belief that I wasn’t conquerable. I was young, and it would remain that way for eternity.

I have wrinkles now, and I know I’m going to die one day. My knees crack in multiples when I stand from crouching, I go to sleep sometimes before 10pm, I can finally see myself having kids, I have wisdom to share with the most gullible of people, and my body reels in agony for days after a long night on the town – now a rare occasion. I am twenty-nine.

I feel age. Not overcoming me, but teasing, tickling, nudging. I don’t prescribe to drugs, nor skin products, or existence of the most bohemian, indulgent kind (anymore), but I can be good and bad in equal measure and my body is now informing me when it has been involved in something unhealthy. I am learning my lessons. And when I don’t, I am told off more severely.

I will wake on a Sunday in a place I have slept upon for one night only. I will emerge from my tent and my first sight will be a river, provided I have put my glasses on. I will eat, fold my tent, persuade my current belongings that they are able to fit within the holds of my kayak, and I will paddle. I will be thirty.

I am rich. I have spent time in six of the continents, eaten the seafood of Zanzibar and the Capybara of the Andes, been uncomfortably cold and unbearably hot. In seas I have been tossed and in deserts lost, I have been loved and discarded, played and worked in equal measure, seen views that belong in paintings and witnessed the conditions others live in that have choked and brought me to tears. I have reached that fork in the road many a time, and more often than not have chosen the path less travelled, for better or for worse. I have been ever so close to losing everything. I have been lucky. There have been times I would have bitten thirty years off if offered, and your hand with it.

I do not need a party to celebrate the turning of a new decade, the only sadness will be the absence of my lady, but this is slight for we have long together. I have an adventure on my hands that will change me, as they all do, and why stroll through life without extremes? We learn from our ability to deal with contrasts, I am still sane despite self-enrolment in activities considered insane by many, and myself too when in the deepest pits of unknown.

Yes, I miss my youth, but I crave the present more. We’ll never have it again, and while it’s here it becomes what we make it. Betty Walton from Tintaldra told me that today is a gift, and that’s why it is called the present. I wouldn’t have met Betty had I not decided to do a kayak journey before learning to kayak properly. I hope to be taking those kinds of risks long into my thirties, and beyond. Thank you Twenties, you’ve been wonderful. Goodnight.

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