Frankly Put: Happy Birthday To You…
Who remembers YouTube Rewind? I will admit it’s a little bit of a difficult thing to forget by virtue of just how iconic the whole thing was.
I remember being younger and looking forward to the end of the year when all the creators I would be so invested in would come together in this weirdly satisfying hodge-podge of fanatic ecstasy. Edited in an almost entrancing series of cut scenes and single shot rolls, that one video told of all the trends that happened through the specific year. Scored with music that was on top of the charts, it was hard not to think about where we were when we first heard the songs.
The combination of all these things definitely made the whole situation feel nostalgic and they really played to the tune of ensuring that we milked every bit of the year down to the last drop. After the whole trend died out, it was replaced almost seamlessly at least socially with the Spotify wrapped. Now they package your journey through music on a personal basis. All your favourite emotion and memory-infused tracks are compiled into this summary.
I believe that the birthdays in my life have been in the same template, lately. It is a case where as we get closer to my birthday, nights begin to be lined up with these nostalgia bombs. These memories, both good and bad, roll out and get deeper and deeper the closer we get to the day. Lately, they have been imbued with a slight tinge of quarter-life crisis and existential dread. All these checklists put on the wall alongside the actual achieved items.
All the resolutions that were carried forward from the previous year are also piled on the ones that are made new in the year. Some years I am lucky enough to complete very many of them and I look back with the most joy. I do find myself trying to illicit the same feeling from a few that were deep. Big things that carry the weight of a number of them.
There are however those that people will tell you “There is no timeline to…” Now, I have been having a back-and-forth about the same thing with myself. Here is the conundrum. It is both true and false. The way I see it is that there is no set timeline to these things but you are the one to set a timeline to these things. It is in the second part that people forget themselves in the comfort of the first. I agree to some extent that the first part holds water. However, the second part holds water just the same.
Here me out, take for example a career. They will tell you that you can start at any point and still be successful in it. They will point to success cases of a wide variety from the child prodigies, to old money, to people who found success in their latter days. It’s all just sooo comforting to hear that just because you haven’t attained your goals, you are not forgotten. Sometimes though, you are. We are not all meant to be successful in this life and that is okay. There are strengths to be played on and there are weaknesses to be accepted.
It is true there is no set timeline… for you. You have to set it. You have to be the one who pulls the trigger. The world will not wait for you to get ready though. This makes me see on most days that “shoulds” are just as important as they are impractical. These are the timelines that society superimposes on you and true to the fact, if you do not take the time to claim what you would like, life will come for you with what it thinks you like.
I am looking at the age that I am turning this time round and it sounds serious. At least my peers would say so. Adulting is officially warmed up and now entering it’s uphill task era and is soon to plateau. Lately, people have been showing up with banners of “shoulds” ticked. Whilst the other half of people are completely fighting the notion in a way that sometimes just feels like they are fighting for the sake of fighting and have forgotten where they actually stand.
Some of these “shoulds” I find are actually based on efficiency of life. They are not exactly set-in-stone commands but suggestions of how to line up the priorities that will be there regardless of your level of preparation for them. These look like your career, marriage, getting a house, a car or all of those things. This idea that you should figure these out to the end before you move on to the next.
However, I believe they are simply pieces in the chessboard of life. All of them are important in some way shape or form but you don’t have to play them off the board to play with another. You are the one who slots them into your timeline and says when you feel or desire these things to be. You can feel like you should get married later on in life and truth is, that is your timeline. You will work towards a career with a mentality of when success will be. So on and so forth. Having no timeline sometimes can be an escape from facing the failure of what you thought you’d achieve.
Ahem! Nevertheless, you define your failure. You are the person who sets the exam for yourself. This year's Rewind has come with some madness… and badness. However, Happy birthday to you… to put it Frankly.
