Mind’s Eye An ode to growing up.

There comes a time in your twenties where you wake up hungover, because your friend insisted that you join her at this new bar she discovered through stalking her ex on Instagram. While being overpriced and each cocktail named after a sex position, making it utterly awkward to order, it had a beautiful Scandanavian warm interior taken straight from Pinterest - as does most of Soho nowadays, now that you think of it. Though, from what you can remember of the unintentionally fuzzy night, it matched your own interior design goals. However, you’re renting and the landlord is a prick who hates anything that exudes even an ounce of modernity.

You shudder at the sight of the dress you so desperately wanted to wear on your second date of the week tonight, that is seemingly still damp and has now fallen off the radiator. It acts as a makeshift tumble drier because the flat that you searched high and low for- in this economy- doesn’t have one. Sod him though, this will probably be another case of, ‘you’re a lovely girl but…’. You shake off the thought because you’ll never be impartial to a free dinner, even though you relentlessly call yourself a feminist, and the bill should probably be split in two. But you’re a traditional woman. So traditional that you find yourself seeking validation from the 23-27 year olds within a 10 mile radius on Hinge, which makes you hate your neighbourhood and what it has to offer.

You get up and examine the hellhole, otherwise known as your bedroom, which you left in a flurry after your last minute invite. Following many arguments with yourself last night, on the basis that you absolutely need more clothes, you conclude this morning that you absolutely do not. The pile on the floor confirms this as it seems to look up to you with grimacing eyes and you feel a twinge of guilt as you remember the planet is in fact dying and this situation of yours is turning into overconsumption and is not doing anything good for the state of the earth. Sitting on the end of the bed, you aimlessly scroll through Instagram to distract yourself, until an image of a celebrity and their private jet meets your eyes - but save the turtles, right?

Annoyed by this evident double standard, you mooch into the bathroom until you are met with your reflection for the first time today. Your eyelash extensions point in all different directions because you must have slept on your front, which you have been told many times by the lady at the salon not to do. Maybe you should go on an eyelash detox? But you can’t because your mum let you have them done for year eleven prom and you’ve been getting them ever since because you don’t feel pretty without them, so you’ll blame her for that one. You should call your mum.

You open the luxurious faux leather case that came with your Dyson Air Wrap - an impulsive purchase costing you £500 that you’ll never get back and caused you to eat nothing but Pot Noodle for the remainder of the month, but it’s okay because this girl on YouTube told you to buy it after you cut your own curtain bangs after perilously insisting on needing to change your appearance one night at two A.M. At least the box is cute. You wonder if you can even afford to be using heat on your hair, let alone have the heating on all day, and you begin to imagine what life would be like if the Tories would step down, and it’s a euphoric thought, because my god it’s freezing in here.

As you are now an adult, unfortunately, you live on Microsoft Outlook and your MacBook Pro, which doesn’t seem to be very ‘pro’, since it breaks every year. But alas, this one seems to be holding strong, and it houses all the tools needed to make it in the creative industry, which justifies it all.

Or so you thought, as you scroll through email after email, anticipating your next job, because as a freelancer your life depends on holding on to hope. You wonder why you decided to go to uni and not just get a 9-5 in customer service, or something, because at least you’d have a stable income. You soon realise, though, that this is the hangover talking and you start to feel sad because you miss your uni friends and your little house which you made your own.

There is an IKEA flatpack staring at you in the corner of the room, which you’d promised yourself you’d build in an attempt to make your flat somewhat pleasant, in true ‘girlboss’ fashion. Yet, even though you’re an adult now- which life likes to send small unwelcomed reminders of everyday- you still need your dad to help you with the handiwork, and you keep forgetting to ask. It reminds you of Christmas morning where the living room would turn into a Barbie workshop, and again, you are ridden with sadness as you long for the days where you were carefree and nothing seemed to matter.

You decide to take yourself on a ‘hot girl walk’, because Tik Tok told you to and you desperately value the views of teenagers on there, in an attempt to feel part of something. You recognise that you’re not old, but not getting any younger and you sometimes wonder why you haven’t bought property and settled down like every single one of your Facebook friends from school. But there’s time for that and it isn’t going anywhere, you decide - in what is quite possibly the first positive thought today.

“No kid or husband, but least I have all this storage for coats,” you tell yourself, rummaging through the array of winter coats - way more than needed for one person, but you’re an adult who can own as many coats as they want. You decide on one of the nicer ones in an attempt to make yourself feel better but deep down you know it’s in case you meet someone like in the films. Although, the only person you’ll bump into is the hipster who will serve you at the coffee shop who hates his life - but, hey, that’s a common interest, right? Realising the cynicality of this and blaming it on the fact that you desperately need a fancy £10 coffee, you decide on comfort as always, and go on your merry way, as you try to decipher the phenomenon that is growing up.