TIME

NOA SHENKER

It also plants the seed to a scary thought, that once we hit a certain age, we mustn’t have much h more to look forward to. Kind of messed up, isn’t it? No one will ever say it out loud to you, but there’s a deep, guttural feeling that if you aren’t everything you want to be by 30, then you’ll never be that person.

I don’t really want to be told how to spend my time – I just want to do it.

Last year seemed like a bit of a waste because of that. I was stuck, but time continued counting on. The hours, days, weeks and months bled me dry. Those months were meant for adventure –a promise I’d made to every adult who had ever offered me that simple advice, a promise I was now inadvertently breaking.

But I know now I have to reframe the way I look at time, and disallow it to dictate the way I go about living my life. It shouldn’t be the arbiter of all things special. Nothing should dictate when something can be accomplished by. And no one should feel as if their best years have ever escaped them.

I won’t let myself carry that burden through my youth. It’s too heavy a load to even bother with.

Once I shed myself of that skin and pressure, the hours will seem less like they’re running away from me, and more like old friends parting for different journeys.

I WAS BORN ON THE CUSP OF THE YEAR 2000 – 107 DAYS BEFORE THE TURN OF THE CENTURY – ON A SUNNY SPRING MORNING.

I have lived through two centuries and four decades. Sometimes I feel like I have wasted a lot of my time.

I’m unsure if that wastage has even been my fault, though. As a young person, adults usually find themselves obliged to give me advice. Often they tell me, ‘Enjoy life while you can.’ The implication being that once I really, truly hit adulthood – well, it must all be downhill from there. Cram every bucket list adventure and special memory into the years between 18 and 25, and then spend the rest of your life living off their high. I’ve never really seen that as advice, though; it’s always felt like more of a warning.

It seemed like a threat to use my time wisely while I could. Whilst that offer might seem generous through an older lens, , it mostly just puts greater pressure on us young people. There’s so much time spent in our heads worrying if we’re using our time wisely, that at the end of the day the timer’s already run out, and we’ve missed those opportunities we’re told to savour. Time, amongst many things, is ephemeral. It slips through your fingers. The point isn’t to hold on to it for as long as possible – it’s about enjoying the feeling of it in your grasp before you let go. Johnny just figured he’d get his chance. I mean,

ELLIE BARCLAY KELLY LIM

INFINITE 02