Olive

by Emma Gannon

I was told when I was little by my grandmother, Pearl, that when you turn thirty, you are suddenly gifted a new kind of respect for yourself. ‘You will care less, as if by magic, my dear,’ she would say. ‘Being young is terribly confusing. Quite awful really.’

You slip into your new skin like a snake who’s finally come home.

I would neatly cut around pictures of products I found interesting from the flimsy thin pages of Argos, and Pritt-stick them inside the blank pages. Navy-blue patterned plates. A big wooden rolling pin. Hand-painted tea cups. A garden slide. A stylish armchair. A woollen throw for the sofa. A picture frame designed for four landscape-shaped photos. I would trim carefully around each one with big kitchen scissors, in circular motions, around the plates, bowls, crockery. I would stick them into the blank pages, designing my life in detail from an early age. I believed I would have these perfect little things in my home when I was older.

Turns out that you can’t Pritt-stick a life together as a child and then hop inside it when the time is right like Bert from Mary Poppins.

I picture myself twenty, thirty years into the future, with silver in my hair, walking on a beach with a partner, writing in the evenings with a glass of wine, and multiple nephews and nieces visiting me in my cosy home.

‘You know what gets to me? The knowing, smug smirk that so often accompanies the words: “You’ll change your mind.”’ Kym, 35

‘Oh Ol. You just need a perspective change. This isn’t the end. This is the beginning,’ she said, and stroked my unwashed hair.

Our lives have pretty much mirrored one another’s exactly; with peaks and troughs, like lines on a graph.

Her presence always felt so motherly, so safe.

She never felt as if she could say no, even if it meant saying no to her own family sometimes.

‘Guys, I have the fear. Seriously, did I say or do anything weird last night?’ She walked across the room, kicked off her slippers and curled up underneath the duvet with us, spooning Cecily. Isla always gets ‘the fear’, ever since our sixth-form days when she got hammered at our leavers’ do on Bacardi Breezers and asked our only male teacher (poor Mr Simmons) ‘to dance’, as if she was a character in a Jane Austen novel.

My body has changed and morphed, and now I’m my very own teddy bear.

Because the only intimacy I can get at the moment is a hairdresser touching my scalp.

Life’s hard enough without a vegan campaigner banging on and on.

This is living in London. No rest for the wicked. No physical boundaries. Constant interruptions. Everyone is so on, on, on. Everything is up for debate and you are always in someone’s way.

Back-handed compliments really mess with my head.

I think I am in that rare and temporary point in life where I am an ‘old young person’ and a ‘young old person’. I’m bang in the middle: young enough to be cool, old enough to have some experience of how shit life can be.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to freeze time.

Grief can knock you sideways.

I guess this is being human: we can never be 100 per cent sure about any decision we make.

We weren’t going to be those people who let friendships slide. Or were we?

I know how much they all have going on, but I still can’t shake the feeling that the girls have let me down.

That’s when we duck into the flagship Foyle’s bookshop on Charing Cross Road, because we knew they had some spacious toilets in there, next to the café on the fifth floor.

Terrifying! Like something out of The Shining.

Why do seconds seem so stretched out when you are waiting for something important?

That’s why looking at the sky and out to the sea scientifically relaxes humans – because when we look into that deep, deep blue we realize we are insignificant specks.

Millennials are cash poor and fucked over. Poor sods. Probably can’t afford to do the whole kid thing until they’re in their forties, or even older, and most of them aren’t home-owners, at least in London.

‘Oh fucking hell, Ol. Having a baby doesn’t mean I will forget that everyone else exists.’ ‘OK, sorry.’

I miss her, even though she’s right here.

None of us anticipated how much of a shift it would cause. It was like losing a family member – and in some ways perhaps that triggers me.

I’m so happy for Cec, she’ll be a brilliant mum, I know she will. But I can’t help feeling that her moving forwards is just a reminder that I’m only moving back.

‘Also I used to think Richard E. Grant was called “Richardy”, for like my whole life.’ ‘OK – you have too many thoughts.’ ‘Hmm,’ I agree, closing my eyes.

‘I also used to think that people were actually stacked on top of each other during University Challenge – it’s actually just edited that way.’ ‘Sshh,’ she says quietly.

‘I feel so alone in my thoughts. I feel nothing there. It’s so empty.’

I’m genuinely baffled as to how most people seem to skip out of bed each morning and get on with things.

It feels like an eternity. God knows what she’s just been through. Did time stop for her? Or did it go by in a hazy whirlwind flash?

I scrub and scrub and imagine that I am scrubbing away the shit bits of my personality.

I can’t even get myself dressed at the moment.

surprise surprise, adult that I am – I have no plasters in the house.

Her looks get annoying because men stare at her and I often feel like shouting MOVE ALONG or asking them to pay if they want to look or take pictures of her. She’s not a silent mime artist performing on the streets of Covent Garden, awaiting their approval.

I’m back at square one and they’re raising kids and buying houses and stuff. It’s hard to tell if I am ostracizing myself, or if it’s the other way around.’

‘I’ve just been trying to keep my head down and get on with things. Even if I do feel a bit lonely.’

A baby is a symbol of a fresh start, new beginnings, and some new hope for a messed-up world. They make you forget about politics, the news, the chaos the grown-ups have brought about. Something new to fall in love with.

close my eyes to focus on my breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

I love the impromptu nature of my life – all I need is my laptop and to chuck a pair of pants in a tote bag, and I can work from anywhere; any hotel room or hotel lobby, preferably with G&T in hand.

That’s the strange thing about grief – you often have to remind yourself it happened. Even the little things still bring Jacob to mind;

Society rewards couples so much. Life is just so much easier in a couple. Cheaper, easier, more logical: take couple-discounted train tickets for example, or splitting bills, or tax benefits!

My journalist instinct takes me to Twitter and I scroll and scroll, immediately reminded what a bizarre place it is.

Never make eye contact with someone whilst eating a banana. JUST DID THO lol.

I always longed to be Sabrina the Teenage Witch for this reason, because she could point her finger and freeze time. I want that. Imagine freezing time for an hour or two so you could sort your shit out.