Who’s Got Me?
By Erin Deborah Waks
‘Your twenties’ were, always, sold to me as a hedonistic period filled with independence, parties and sex.
Growing up, I envisaged this period of my life to be full of the kind of laid-back, youthful fun that was presented by shows such as Sex And The City and Friends. I hoped I’d have pals swinging by my place for pancake breakfasts before work, would be out every Saturday night with a man on my arm, would write a single word-perfect article casually every week and somehow draw in an eye-watering salary while spending most of my time hosting elaborate dinner parties, surrounded by my best friends while living in a gorgeous apartment in the Big Smoke.
Well, I got some of that right.
While my life now does, of course, have plenty of great things in it, I was struck recently by just how much of my twenties I seemed to be spending alone.
Living in London is a contradiction - how can I live in the same city as some of the people I love most in the world, and yet find that, amid all the booked-up calendars, exhaustion from working so hard and clashing diaries, it’s so difficult to find time for it all?
I guess I’ve observed another change in myself. I no longer need so much time with others to feel okay. I need less validation, less distraction, less to occupy my brain than ever before. I never thought I’d love lie ins and movies in bed by myself as though they were my lifeblood. I get immense satisfaction - no, joy - out of looking after myself, being responsible for myself, taking care of myself and just being with myself.
But it’s lonely, sometimes.
We’re in a stage where many of us no longer depend on parents, but are not yet in committed relationships with a partner who becomes our main source of reliance, antidote to loneliness. Naturally, this means we lean on our friends more than ever before. And that’s beautiful. But friends have their own shit to deal with. Life gets in the way.
Sometimes, inevitably, that means those of us swimming against the increasingly fraught current of handling a job, friendships, a dating life, hobbies, self care, mental health, household chores and keeping fit all by ourselves can find it hard to keep our heads above water. Most of the time, I manage just fine. But a friend, experiencing a similar gnawing reminder of just how tiring it can be to do everything yourself, put it really well: ‘Who’s got me?’
Who’s going to pick up the pieces when I’m sad? Who will alternate loads of laundry, do the cooking, wash the dishes, buy groceries? Who will make me soup when I’m sick, pick me up from the airport, say good morning and goodnight every day, and bring me coffee in bed on a Sunday morning?
Who’s got me, then?
I do, of course.
