Sitting on the upper deck of a 197 much later than planned, I peered out of the warped front window whilst the burnt orange moon stared back. Cloaked in grey cloud, it looked as though it tasted of San Pellegrino Arianciata Rossa. Maybe I was just particularly parched. My journey home was made especially arduous due to many a delay courtesy of Thameslink services from 8pm onwards. Aware of this before arriving to my friends new place in Surrey, I made no plans to mitigate against it. ‘There’s always a way back!’ I reasoned. It was only once my stomach buzzed with too much prosecco to the risk of rupture and the familiar throbbing of my toothache began that I regretted this decision. Two hours of journeying awaited me.
The housewarming was planned a few weeks prior when it seemed we had been blessed with eternal sunshine. The sun continuously occupied the bright blue sky. I think we got a bit complacent and forgot ourselves, this is England after all. By the time the weekend came, the whole week had been filled with nothing but grey skies and unrelenting rain. Plans of a BBQ were crushed. Perhaps the price to pay for a spring that was too much like summer is a summer that models early spring.
My friend, who I’ve shared eleven years of friendship with all due to the seating plan of my Year 9 Biology class had moved out of home for the first time and got a little deeper into Surrey with her boyfriend of five years. She told me and another friend this news during an afternoon out in Southbank. Over our varying street market food (mine Mexican, Her’s Polish, our friend’s, Greek), she announced she would be flying the nest and taking the next step with her boyfriend, who we all loved. Me and our other friend cooed, “Krishy, how can you not have told us this before! How exciting!’ we screeched, sitting crossed legged on a patch of grass like schoolgirls on a field trip.
She isn’t my first friend to move out, or the first to move out with a partner, but it felt all that monumental. Me and my other friend remarked it was because her and her partner had done it the right way, they’d gotten their salaried jobs, they’d been dating for years, and now, at 25, it was time to take their first step onto the property ladder, together. “It’s not like with me and my ex. That was way too soon” remarked my other friend, “this is actually a healthy relationship!”. We laughed, though the atmosphere felt a little stricken with sombreness at the reflection.
Meeting my friends at London Bridge to embark on our journey to the suburbs, we discussed again how sweet, but also how adult it was that the couple had got their own place. Gift bags by our feet and cocktail tinnies in our hands, we spoke of our excitement for the day ahead, despite the low-spirited weather threatening our good time.
With a bouquet of flowers wedged between my bosom and elbow—subsequently a little bruised and withered—I hug the happy (and now nesting!) couple. We greet her other friends and lay various drinks on the table. I hold the magnum bottle of prosecco I bought up to my head to emphasise its size. Turns out nobody else was particularly fond of prosecco apart from me and another friend which left us with the task of nursing the whole thing to ourselves. A selections of small meats and finger-sized pastries presented on pretty wooden boards were centrepiece on the dining table. French, a gift from the Mother.
Upon arrival I immediately fell in love with the kitchen’s mini built in balcony (of course utilised for seasoning and spices storage)
Sitting at the table with friends of friends, I let saucisson sec melt on my tongue and teasingly remarked over who was hogging the sour cream and chive tube of Pringles. Inebriated voices grew especially large when someone would try to skip the Spotify queue with their requested song, and we laughed over stories of their creepy neighbour who our friend had already caught a few times leering out of his window, which sadly faces their front garden.
Conversation buzzed and filled the house. Typical topics persisted: work, gentrification, music, summers plans, the North and South divide of England. We played Greek drinking games and took blurry photos together that we demanded were all swiftly Airdropped to each other. Festival tickets were bought, fuelled by the effects of spiced rum on one’s decision making, and a friend turned teary after explaining her sheer love for Drum and Bass. I played Nothing Matters by The Last Dinner Party and dialled up the sound. Me and my friend got up to dance. “When I hear this song, I just imagine running through an open field” I said as we held hands and flailed our arms up to the beat. “No, for me, I’m riding a horse”. Laughter took over both of us.
People made their moves as a journey back to London awaited them. Coaxed to stay until the next train (which came every hour), I slid out of my trench coat and cushioned myself in between my friends on the sofa. I am never one for an early departure, even if it is to my detriment. Resting on the sofa as time marched forward and my friends smoked outside, I slightly regretted not bringing bits for an overnight stay. Suddenly it felt as though it were my bedtime. I looked on Maps for my route home. It looked especially abysmal, and even worse, I’d find myself in Croydon. I’d travel for 50 minutes and still only be in Croydon.
At last managing to escape, because how can I say no to my friends when they look at me like that, I lightly jog in cowboy boots to the station. I see my train at the platform and panic when my digital ticket fails to scan. I get the attention of a man waiting outside and ask for his help, admittedly in a frantic state. Turns out I was scanning it at the barriers that were exit only and laughed awkwardly when it scans on the first try at the right barrier. The train was relatively busy considering it was 11pm. I looked on at the passengers and wondered where they might all be heading. If anyone was picking a loved one up from Gatwick airport or coming back from a friend’s housewarming themselves.
With the next train to London Bridge cancelled, and the wait time for the proceeding one being 49 minutes, I walked to the bus station and waited for the only TfL bus that stopped there. The words ‘Croydon’ lit up by a bright backlight emerged as the bus weaved into the station, and I’d never been happier to see those words. Sitting by the driver because it was late at night and I felt I needed some extra protection, I placed my cold water battle to my jaw to soothe my toothache that was unmasking itself.
Conscious of the fact I had finished my pack of ibuprofen and paracetamol, I sucked on a mint in the hopes that the peppermint and menthol would soothe my aggravated tooth. With the pain emanating from my jaw taking over my whole being, I passed the time by googling ‘ways to quit sugar’ in an attempt to switch my life around so as not to feel this kind of pain again. The next eve, crying in pain as my mum calls the emergency dentist for me, I went from feeling like a young adult with friends who lived in the burbs’ with their long term partners to a helpless little girl incapable of action.
We’re growing up, and it’s strange, and confusing, and there aren’t specific markers that prove our status into adulthood. Unlike puberty, there isn’t an adulthood equivalent of a first bra fitting or pack of Lil Lets purchased that marked our admittance into adolescence. Arguably maybe one’s first car or 9-5 is comparable to that of a first tampon used. Now, you are a woman.
A week from 25, I’m feeling reflective. 25 is the societal age in which your are supposed to have it all together. Career, secured. Finances, abundant, Partner, in waiting. House, rented, at the very least. This feeling of ‘having it all together’ is intensified by the fact that eligibility for discounted memberships all end at 25. Just a year left of my Tate Collective membership, days of my U25 Picturehouse one… These are serious things!
The social contract we bought into that would, and has done for prior generations, make possible ‘having it all together’, has been breached. We did well in school, and studied, and worked hard, and were promised an (affordable) home to call our own and prosperous (well-paying) careers in return. As a result of this contractual repudiation, what we’re left with are graduates unable to enter their desired job market (or really any their qualified, or overqualified for) and 20-somethings renting rooms in house of five for a grand a month.
It’s hard to feel like an adult in these circumstances. The very meaning of the word feels elusive, it’s definition seems to be shifting in our current socioeconomic climate. Instead, it seems a lot of us our traversing through a perpetual teenhood, feeling like teenage-twentysomething year olds.
My mum describes me to others as a mother hen since the arrival of my kitten, Rumi, five weeks ago. I’ve also started watching Downton Abbey (as I’ve been without a show to watch for months and can’t justify putting on a movie every time I have a meal), and that feels like another adult decision. We may still be in our parental homes, in childhood bedrooms, in jobs we don’t particularly like and definitely don’t want to forge careers in, but we’re definitely growing up. That’s for sure.
I feel excited for what my mid-twenties will bring, a new age is always rousing. I find that the middle of a decade is often a seminal, shifting time. Being fifteen felt like my whole worldview was changing, so I won’t be surprised if similar feelings rush back from 25 onwards. I am also trying not to make such a thing of it as I did when I turned twenty, mourning my teen years unaware that my early twenties would indeed be the continuation of them. “The middle of adventure, such a perfect place to start” argues Alex Turner, and I can’t disagree.
Frank’s Cafe, a favourite
Queencoc0 Talks 
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