30.
At the start of turning 29 I was absolutely done with my 20s. There was no sadness about aging, life was getting sweet, I was excited to age up, ready and running towards ✨30✨, debt free, with the the health of my family and in a home I loved. Now though, with everything that’s changed, I wish I could travel back in time, maybe to a pre COVID era, maybe 2016. A time where my mum didn’t have cancer, where my mum still lived in our childhood home, and where I had just settled in with my now partner of 7 ish years. A time where life was simpler, I was in my mid twenties and just discovering who I would become now, beginning a career in healthcare, beginning to become best friends with my mum, and living in my first flat post university. A time where mum had her spark and it wasn’t tarnished by some sort of bitter sweet we might not have much time left feeling. We had no idea that 2020 would be the start of the end, and how uncomplicated that was.
Growing old wasn’t something me and mum ever spoke about until we received her terminal diagnosis in July of this year, and then, we did a lot. She told me she never saw herself as an old person, never thought she’d get there. We always joked she’d never retire due to her shopaholic tendencies, but I never considered that cancer would steal her away.
She always wanted to be a gran. She wanted me to have a baby almost immediately after I met my partner. When I reflect now, I think, maybe she had those desires because she oddly knew she wouldn’t be around as the typical granny you might envision, living a full life and dying at a ripe age. She had to grow up fast. Adulthood clung to her, she was married with two children by 28, living a life so alien to my 20s experience.
Here’s where I’m reminded that if I die at the age my mum passed, my dad, or almost even my nan, I’ve lived more of my life already than I have left. I’m terrified daily that I know my demise. I’ve watched it play out, it’s written in our history. Woven into the fabric of my skin, my DNA.
Cancer is coming.
Then again, I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, not that I’m planning on leaving the house.
What I mean to say, is something we all know, we don’t know what’s around the corner, or how many years we have left. We can’t predict the future, but if I could the next decade might look something like -
Settling down in a home we own by my mid 30s, having a lovely big kitchen where I can enjoy cooking in abundance, going on an abroad adventure or two (long overdue), breakfast in bed, a nook to work from home, rescuing another dog, frequent date nights, wholesome evenings by the fire, a little pot of money set aside for rainy days, a nice park nearby where we live, maybe even a sea view, new family, close-knit friends.