Since turning the grand old age of 23 a few weeks ago, I've been spending even more time than usual mulling over the fact that I'm slowly becoming a real adult (supposedly at least), and my student days are getting further and further behind me. Alice at The Cup and Saucer wrote a great post recently about being 23 and the funny little limbo period that ensues for so many of us at that age which rang so true for me as I'm happily living as an independent adult living away from home, working a full time job that I actually enjoy (at least most of the time!) and generally being quite self sufficient but on the other hand I still sulk about having to wake up in the morning, I'm in no way ready to discuss grown up things like babies, mortgages or weddings (unless the weddings are for other people, in which case I say bring on the wine and dress shopping) and I like to ring Mama and Papa T just to check I'm doing things like setting up phone contracts or putting up pictures right.
The worst thing for me about being 23 is the fact that the day in those pictures above was over 18 months ago. In my head it still feels like graduation was just days ago but in reality so much has changed since then. Not necessarily in a bad way, I'm still just as good friends with all of the delightful people I met when I moved to Uni, I'm still living in Leeds but in a slightly more sophisticated way than I was back then and I'm still just as silly as I was when I was 21. But still, things aren't the same as they were and that makes me feel huge pangs of nostalgia on an almost daily basis.
Take last week for example. This time last Thursday I was at a 1920's night at a bar in Headingley the student area of Leeds. I stayed out until midnight despite it being a school night, which to the current me felt like a massive act of rebellion. I found myself longing for the days the spontaneous, midweek nights out that used to happen if I took a trip to the pub for a few quiet drinks. Hell, there was one time I was sat in bed in my pyjamas about to switch my light off and go to sleep when one of my friends text me to say she was bored and about half an hour later I found myself on a dance floor with a vodka lemonade in my hand.
And therein lies the main problem- spontaneity is rarely an option these days.
Most of my friends are dotted about the country with only a small handful of us still left in Leeds, so any sort of gathering takes a good bit of planning, trying to organise everything to the letter and fit in around everybody else's calendars. Only having weekends to play with leaves little time for spontaneous activities. Even planning a lunch date can often take considerable thought to organise as we all want to make the most of our precious days off and so there's rarely any opportunity to drop someone a text and say 'shall we meet in half an hour for a drink and a cake?'. I miss the days of lunch dates being an almost daily occurrence, and I'm sure Opposite cafe in Leeds misses our regular custom too. Their brownie sales must have dropped considerably since my friends and I graduated.
I'm so lucky that I get to see most of my friends pretty regularly still, largely due to the fact that I'm so insistent on making the most of my weekends as much as I can by doing the things I love (read: drinking too much vodka and dancing like a crazy person) as often as I can, and I absolutely love how fun it is when we do all meet up because it isn't a daily event any more so we really make the most of it. Its just at times when I'm bored in the middle of the week, or realise its going to be weeks or even months before I see some of my friends again, or even just when I'm sat at work wishing I could escape to Opposite and buy a brownie and a sandwich that I realise just how much I miss the good old days before becoming a (part-time) adult.
This song seemed like a highly appropriate choice of post title, not only because it sums up a lot of what I've been waffling on about but also because its just one of those songs that as soon as I hear it transports me right back to happy little times in 2010- a time long before real life even crossed my mind.
