Verity Johnson is an Auckland-based writer and business owner.
OPINION: Well, thank God that’s over.
I think you could sum up 2023 with, “oh, Christ, what now!?” Or, if we’re being cheerier, “at least cannibalistic megalomaniac aliens blasting Celine Dion didn’t invade while I was on the loo!”
So now we’ve staggered over the finish line, it’s time to talk about the important stuff.
Namely, I’ve got a birthday coming up this year which I’m completely unprepared for. I’m sure you do too. After all, no one ever really feels prepared for their birthday. It always feels like you’ve suddenly walked into an exam you forgot to prepare for.
One minute you’re happily snoozing in bed. The next you’re outside your school gymnasium, clutching your sweaty pencils, smelling warm sneakers and trepidation as you realise you are not ready for this.
Adrian Hillman/123RF
Whether we’re turning 21, 50 or 73, it feels deeply unfair. Not only are we unprepared – but for once, it really wasn’t our fault. We’ve just had a blur of three non-years. Years that didn’t play by the rules. 2020, 2021 and 2022 were especially guilty.
But also, no one is ready for their new age in 2024. Whether we’re turning 21, 50 or 73, it feels deeply unfair. Not only are we unprepared – but for once it really wasn’t our fault.
We’ve just had a blur of three non-years. Years that didn’t play by the rules. 2020, 2021 and 2022 were especially guilty.
There were no milestones, travel, celebrations and, most importantly, no sense of forward progress.
We all just stayed inside, paralysed by the global uncertainty, and living in a suspended timeless state of track pants and anxiety. It was like we’d all holed up inside a global casino – only with a great sense of impending doom.
Then 2023 was another cheat year, because again there was no sense of forward progress, just a weird mix of processing and playing catch up for what on earth had just happened.
Basically, the world didn’t move forward for those years. So, why should we?
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2020, a non-year, was the year Covid-19 arrived, (known as Coronavirus back then), which meant we had to social distance while waiting in line to go into a store.
Now, I know we can’t get a refund for the past three years, but I think we can get a credit note.
And that means whatever age you’re turning in 2024, take three years off of it.
Now I know that there is a certain morally superior type who’ll read that and sniff, “not all of us are scared of ageing, Verity.
I’m happy to embrace the inevitable decline into $15 Denny’s senior meals and death.”
Well, bully for you. I’m not. But even if I was, I don’t actually think this is just about being scared of ageing.
I don’t think it’s just because one more year is one more inch towards invisibility, irrelevancy, and spending our weekends cycling.
And I don’t just think it’s because we’re panicking that we haven’t achieved whatever social milestone we’re supposed to have at a certain age. (Although both those fears are a big part of our general discomfort with ageing.)
Rather, I think we feel short-changed going into 2024, because age is one of the most common ways we give ourselves permission to do the things we really want.
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You have permission to take three years off your age, and use that time to find whatever it is you wanted to look for before you hit your 2024 age.
We know it’s silly, but we all do it. You know, “I’m in my 20s, I can have fun and be crazy because it doesn’t matter!” Or, “I’m in my 50s, I’m going to have and be crazy because now I know it doesn’t matter!”
So, when you lose three years of an allotted emotional experience, it hurts. You feel like you had allowed yourself a certain window of time to be fun, or thoughtful or whatever – and now it’s gone forever. Now, obviously, we all know this is a weird human construct.
You don’t need a number on a birthday cake to give you permission to be who you want to be.
But I know that you do it anyway.
Of course, we do. It’s an external marker that we’re accustomed to relying on to give our lives a sense of progress. And that means, logical or not, unless we do something about this, you’re gonna be hella resentful for your lost emotional exploration. And, since it’s all a construct anyway, who says we can’t bend the rules a little?
I volunteer to be your unofficial fairy godmother. I’ll write you a note excusing you from your next three birthdays. You have permission to take three years off your age, and use that time to find whatever it is you wanted to look for before you hit your 2024 age.
No, you don’t need it, or me, but it’s nice to have that permission.
So happy new year, you minus-three-year-something. And keep an eye out for those aliens.
