Long Way Down

I'm out of step

I used to put you on a pedestal when I was younger you know.

That was what I heard halfway through a recent pint with a cousin. We had spent the previous ten minutes lamenting our lives. He, experiencing his first heartbreak, and I, just working things out, made for a slightly forlorn pair. The words, accompanied by a sympathetic smile, bore no ill will. They did not taint the cider nor do I hold them against him. He is young and steeped in his own sadness and both of those things can cause our utterances to be misshapen.

I met his statement with a grimace of acknowledgement, for I fell off my own platform some time ago. There is a gap between where I am and where I would like to be. I am unsure whether I created that gap or societal pressure manufactured it. Perhaps they are one and the same. Ultimately, I don’t think it matters because I am the only one who can bridge it.

in my pedestal era with said cousin

The adverts for that gap can be obtrusive. Your friends talk about their partners. Mortgages are discussed. The wedding invites keep coming. Another stag do is organised. Offspring tap you on the knee and ask you to play a game. Couples holiday together. You are the ninth wheel in the pub. The gap is stitched into the fabric of life.

A week after the sad-lads-in-the-pub discussion, the drip-drip-drip of self-doubt crystallised at a two-year-old’s birthday bash. As a child they are magical. All your mates, sprinkle sandwiches and pass-the-parcel. But the cake takes on a different flavour when all the other adult attendees are house-owning couples to whom the little tykes belong. That they were there is hardly surprising given the occasion but my mood caught me a little off-guard. It was hard not to feel like things had gone awry at some point. These people had a similar background to me and yet we weren’t on the same page. Not even the same chapter really.

If I told my younger self that I would be single, precariously employed and living with my parents at this stage of my life he would have been somewhat shocked. Partly at the lack of definition of my jaw but mostly at the overall picture. The speed at which life can make you feel deficient in some way is quite frightening.

Did I do the wrong degree?
Was it chasing someone that wasn’t interested for far too long?
Was it the long distance relationship?
Was it the long distance relationship I didn’t try?
Was it abandoning that career?
Or quitting the following job?
Was it moving abroad?
Was it not staying there for long enough?
Is it punishment for that time I stole a solitary strawberry pencil from the newsagents?

It would be irrational to think that closing the gap will provide the key to contentment. In the last year or so, I have seen many friends and loved ones go through painful breakups. Marriages, engagements and long-term couplings coming to a close. Sometimes love ends with a bang but so often a whimper too. There is no joy to be extracted from these situations but there is a perverse reassurance that accompanies them. It makes you go a little easier on yourself.

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Maintaining a no regrets mantra is hard. How can you not question yourself when you feel out of step with your peers. But looking back and surveying your past is a fruitless endeavour. It is not the direction you want to be facing.

Onwards and, ideally, upwards.