#it's like when my friends say they're “old” and hate themselves now that they're thirty

[hightief]

i know it doesn't personally like have an effect on me and i need to mind my own business

but young emmrich mod why

[lauriemarch]

and at the end of the day, people will still hate women.

because beyonce is a terrible songwriter who has a good body and nothing more and she's really nothing compared to olivia rodrigo, that stuck-up bitch who steals other people's music, but taylor swift is an old, bitter nothing who clearly hates other girls. and sabrina carpenter deserves to die because she followed her heart, not her brain, and that's exactly why zendaya will never be good enough for tom holland. don't forget about kylie jenner, who's stealing precious timothee's innocence away and dating her is like committing arthouse cinema suicide, or how we said the same thing about miley cyrus and her disgusting profanity, think of the children, poor liam hemsworth, trapped in a marriage with such a horrible woman. lana del rey was hot until she was big and she made trailerpark sexy until her ass got a little too fat. and ariana grande, talentless homewrecker, and selena gomez, jealous and unreasonable, and hailey bieber, even more boring than the blood drying on the knives you are so quick to pull. sophie turner is a bad mom and megan thee stallion deserved whatever was coming to her.

and amidst all of this, we still don't know these women. we cannot fathom the pain of having a public divorce, one where people choose sides and hurl insults at you until the battery on their phone dies. we don't watch them chase after sweet-cheeked children in tucked-away backyards or play board games with their best friends while their chests heave in laughter. we don't know their marriages and we don't know their solitudes. we don't watch them unravel themselves, time and time again, preparing for the battle that we have made of their lives. they can never make a mistake. they can never cry. they can never be who they believe themselves to be.

and we take all of this and we go to work, we ride the bus, we go grocery shopping, we walk in dappled sunlight, and we let ourselves shrivel. i compare myself to every body i see and i comfort in the fact that i can still encircle my wrists with my fingers. food turns to dust in my mouth when i think about the fact that taylor swift thinks she's fat and people still hate sabrina carpenter for sticking by joshua bassett's side when he almost died, for God's sake, and now the people on my twitter feed are saying GUTS is the worst album they've ever heard. i liked it, the tiny voice in my head cries out. she wrote songs that made me feel noticed. they're calling the song i relate to the most a total skip.

so i close the app. i try not to think about the endless profiles screaming about how much they hate a nineteen/thirty-two/thirty-eight/twenty-three/twenty-six/forty-two year old. i try not to think about how much they would hate me, if they knew anything at all.

[masked-disciple]

Ok friend you have my curiosity where is this fic you speak of. I am SO ready to have my brain chemistry fundamentally changed

Start here. My recommendation is to read that, maybe read the rest of Turnabout NaNoWriMo, and if you want to know more after that, I can hand you some 200k of fic that is properly formatted with the interludes, because Ao3's formatting really doesn't work with the Sagiverse anthologies. (So what you see here is maybe like a quarter of what we've got. We have a lot, and also lots of art.)

Turnabout NaNoWriMo is the first of three-and-a-half anthologies I've written, and it's only after reading and enjoying all of them do I let people at my fiance's anthologies, which are excellent but a bit more private. (Turnabout Runaways, which was this year's NaNo challenge, is incomplete but at least 50k. I will be slowly working on it probably for a few months, and eventually it'll be done.)

These anthologies take place in a greater crossover AU we refer to as Sagiverse. It started in 2020 in Saint Seiya, and now hosts several different series, eight hundred some-odd characters, upwards of thirty different fantasy worlds (of which Earth is only one), and more plotlines than we can keep track of properly.

Here's the two-sentence pitch: seven hundred years ago, there was a giant war between various magical factions on Earth that ended in a mostly-forgotten pyrrhic victory and the gods choosing to seal magic away from the world. So magic began to slowly die out, and as of present day, magic is rarer and rarer, and mage society is dying out, but it's still holding on as best it can, until one day the gods finally allow magic to return.

Ace Attorney gets involved with this very very simply. Miles Edgeworth is a mage. To be specific, he's a necromage, one of the most powerful currently active on Earth. His father, Gregory Atticus Edgeworth, had never found proof of magic while he was alive. His mother... well, no one knows who his mother is, or anything about the man at all. After DL-6, Miles was taken in by MvK as a ward just as canon says, but the von Karmas themselves are magi of a kind. After DL-6, Atticus finds the proof of magic's existence that he's been looking for all along, and he is not going to leave his son and missing fiance alone in a world that so very much wants the both of them dead.

And so begins a thirty-five year trainwreck to put their wayward, way-finding family back together. They'll do it, no matter what it takes. It just turns out their family's a little bigger than they think it is.

The fic I linked pretty much opens with the identity of Miles' mother, which you learn pretty much as I did, because I didn't plan jack or shit, only let him tell me what was going on. You may raise an eyebrow at the canon ages, don't worry about that. We had to fix the timeline anyway (because the forensics tech was all twenty years out of date so we just changed the years to be twenty years earlier, setting DL-6 on December 28th 1981) so we just didn't pull him back as far. Atticus died at 39, his fiance was 33.

This is because when I first got into AA, I found the IS-7 picture of Gregory and Ray, and I sort of mistook 18-year-old Ray as Atticus' wife. My fiance pointed out the age gap, paused, and went "but they're cute so I'm sure we can make it work" and then we did. If you hesitate a bit on the ship but don't immediately hate the idea, I promise I can sell you on it. At the end of the day, everything comes back to Atticus and Ray's tragic romance. This I can promise you: it ends happily. We're just still writing everything in between.

Sagiverse!Ray is a pretty distinct character from canon!Ray, but they're close enough that if you like one you'll probably like the other. I gave him way more trauma and it's fun. :3c

If you're wondering what happens to other characters, I can answer that. Apollo is dead for a few months, Phoenix a little bit longer. Robot!Athena has Issues. Franziska changes her career from Interpol to Magica Underground mostly because it's a better use of her legal talents. Miles gets to be the chosen one and lead a war against one of his university friends who unfortunately (and semi-accidentally) stole Phoenix's corpse and ran away with it. (Phoenix is fine, don't worry about it.) Atticus gets to be a bounty hunter on the ghostroads with Mia and they do a lot of shooting MvK and causing problems. Ray, uh. Well, at least he only got shot in the head twice?

[not-all-dead]

angstpril day twenty: the silent treatment

CW: mentions of a breakup but that’s pretty much the worst of it

fic under the cut

November 3rd, 142

Lin,

Mom made me promise I’d write to you, so here’s me doing that. Grandma and Grandpa say hi, and they want you to visit soon. School’s boring as ever and I have no friends here which is just great. Thanks for that. At least they have good food here, the chef is pretty amazing. Still, I think I’m going to run away soon, just for the sake of it. Maybe I’ll find a family actually worth keeping. Anyway, I don’t miss you or mom, have fun arresting people or whatever.

Su

February 7th, 143

Lin,

Heard you’re chief now. Congrats I guess. Does mom finally pay attention to you? Who am I kidding, of course she doesn’t. Anyway, I left Grandma and Grandpa’s. I’m part of this cool travelling circus right now, but I think I’m going to try something new soon. It’s been fun though, lots of flying through the air above lava pits and other super dangerous things. I bet I’m having a better time than you are, stuck in the stupid city.

I call Grandma every week or two to keep her updated on what I’m doing, otherwise she’ll freak out and think I’m dead or something. She told me today that mom called her yesterday. Mom said she was going to Gaoling to drop off her things before travelling wherever just like I’m doing. Guess I have more in common with her than I thought. I also guess that means you’ve got the apartment to yourself now, must be nice.

How’s Tenzin? You two still madly in love? Actually, don’t tell me, I don’t really care. Not that you’re going to respond to this at all. Whatever. I’ve got a performance to get to, so bye.

Su

December 19th, 145

Lin,

I wish you’d write back. I’m much older now, and I’d be happy to talk things out with you if you’d respond. But I guess that’s something you have to want too, and clearly you still hate me, so I won’t count on it.

I know I haven’t written in a while. I was on a pirate ship for a while, learning to sail and such, and we didn’t dock often. Any paper we had on board was constantly damp, too, so I didn’t see the point. After that I live in a sandbender commune. It was really interesting to see how different people lived, especially different earthbenders. I tried learning to sandbend but it didn’t go so well.

But that’s all past now. I’m building a city now, a city entirely of metal. I’ve got this wonderful architect named Baatar helping me with it, and thank goodness I do. I honestly don’t know how I’d execute my plans without him. I think I might ask him to marry me. I mean, I really do like him, and the idea of a family sounds so nice. If I did I’d really like for you to be there.

I hope everything in the city is alright. Last time I spoke to mom, a couple years ago now, she said you were still going steady with Tenzin. I don’t know how you two have stayed together this long already, you always seemed so different from one another to me. I guess opposites really do attract, as they always say. I’ll write again soon.

Su

April 2nd, 146

Lin,

It would mean the world to me if you could make it. Please come if you can, I’d really like to see you again.

Su

March 27th, 147

Lin,

You have a nephew! I was bummed that you didn’t come to the wedding, but it’s alright. Maybe you’d like to come and meet Baatar Jr. sometime this year… we’d welcome you here in Zaofu if you did. We’re still working on building up the outer cities, but the central hub where our house is is fully operational. I’d love to show you how it all works, we have metalbender staff in training to operate practically every part of the city. It’s a busy time, with the new baby and all the construction.

Please tell me you and your airhead of a boyfriend are getting married soon. I mean, come on! It’s been ten years already, I don’t see how you can possibly still be “taking it slow”. You make no sense to me sometimes, Lin. But then again, I’m sure you feel the same about me.

Mom’s been visiting Zaofu pretty regularly. She’s coming in next week to meet Baatar Jr. for the first time. She still seems to be holding a grudge against me. You two really are cut from the same cloth, you know. I might try to talk things out with her when she comes this time, or at least set a time sometime soon for us to flush things over. It would be great if you’d come too so we could put all this family drama nonsense behind us.

Su

May 30th, 150

Lin,

I’m disappointed that you still refuse to answer. Honestly, mom and I have spent two years talking and figuring things out. We’re good now, and there were plenty of opportunities we gave you to join us. I’m sorry you’re still so bitter.

Baatar Jr. is three now, you’d know if you ever cared to visit. He hasn’t shown any signs of bending yet, but Baatar is a non-bender and I started bending late so that’s not too surprising. We’ve got another one on the way, due in a couple weeks actually. I think if it’s a boy we’ll name him Huan, and if it’s a girl probably Hei-Ran. Again, I wish you’d come and actually be a part of my kids’ lives, but you seem dead set against it.

Kya actually dropped by not too long ago. I hadn’t seen her in ages, so it was a nice surprise. She says her travels have been going well, and she’d visited practically every place on the planet! I loved my time travelling, but ultimately family life is what suited me best. She said she was heading back to Republic City soon, so maybe she’ll drop in on you, too. Anyway, hope the triads aren’t causing too too much havoc for you, Chief.

Su

January 16th, 151

Lin,

Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ve given up. If you’re really that set on giving me the cold shoulder, so be it. I’ll stop writing at all.

Sorry you’re not mature enough to handle this like an adult.

If you were wondering, Huan is very healthy and strong. Baatar Jr. too. Baatar Sr. took ill a while back, but he’s alright now.

I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this when I know you don’t care. Well. Sorry I’m such a bother to you.

Su

August 4th, 156

Lin,

Mom told me what happened with you and Tenzin. He’s an asshole, good on you for wrecking the island. You were always too good for him anyway. I know I haven’t written in a long time, I just didn’t see the point if you kept ignoring me. Maybe now you’ll come and see your family, it might be nice after losing Tenzin.

You’ve got a niece, now, too. And four nephews, the youngest being the twins. They’re only just over a year old now, and Opal recently turned three. I tell them stories about their Aunt Lin, you know. The older boys would really like to meet you, and I’m sure Opal and the twins will too when they’re a little bit more grown up. I want to see you again too, Lin, and I wish you’d at least try to let go of the past. Even just a letter back would make my day.

Hope you’re holding up as Chief there, not too much trouble with the triads or whomever else is committing crime these days.

Su

November 7th, 158

Lin,

Baatar Jr. is now eleven, and seems to be quite the budding architect just like his father. Huan has taken up metalbending little sculptures, so for his eighth birthday he got a little studio just for his art. Opal is five now, and growing up fast. I’ve never seen a five year old read as well as she does. Wing and Wei are still just three, but they seem to enjoy throwing pebbles at one another. I think they’ll be strong benders when they're older.

Mom and I finally made up properly. It’s nice to see her with the kids. She said she wrote to you asking you to come and chat too, but you ignored her. No surprises there. I might stop writing again if you keep this up, so don’t act shocked.

Su

October 21st, 160

Lin,

Mom’s here for a few weeks. Opal turned seven this year, Baatar Jr. thirteen, Huan ten, and the twins five. Wing and Wei invented a game for themselves to help with their metalbending training, they call it “power disk”.

I’m not sure what else to say to you anymore. I’m not sure why I’m even writing this now, after eighteen years. Eighteen years, Lin, and you haven’t even bothered to write back. At least I’ve tried to reach out. But now, I’m done. For real this time. Write if you want, I don’t care. I’m not going to keep sending these anymore.

Su

December 6th, 170

Lin,

Are you alright?! Mom had to tell me about you losing your bending, and she only found out through Katara! I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like. All I can say is that it would undoubtedly be awful.

I miss you, you know. It’s been almost thirty years since we last spoke. I know mom misses you too, and my kids would really like to meet their Aunt. It makes me sad that you’re still so sour about what happened, even after so much time has passed. We’ve both grown and changed as people, and I don’t understand why you can’t see that. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s only me who’s changed at all. Even so, I do miss you, and I wish you’d write. Or visit.

I hope you’re alright, Lin, I really do.

Su

[rainbowmatic-stumpomatic]

*you're sitting alone in your room, maybe you're working on something for school or job, or maybe you should be listening to music and doing a hobby. Maybe you're even just staring at one of the your walls where you swear the previous night a whole had opened up and the eyes of millions appeared in the darkness.

whatever you're doing you notice a radio somewhere in the room which is funny since you don't want to re-do it like that and even if you do the one you have doesn't look like that. Slowly the radio begins to crackle to life and something clicks in your mind, drawing you in as you hear voices pipe up from the speakers*

Dallon Weekes: hello listeners my name is [REDACTED] but you can call me Dallon Weekes, and I'm here with a new co-host why not introduce yourself

Ryan Seaman: uh, right. I'm um... I'm [REDACTED] oh that's right you can't hear that.... Okay then I'm Ryan Seaman and I'll be the co-host with Dallon for now on here on I Don't Know How Radio

*there is the sound of scuffling and quiet mumbles but sounding like a chorus of voices regardless, your unnerved by this that you still listen intently as a state secrets were being told*

Dallon Weekes: tonight hearing Cain the sky is clearing the star shine like glitter on your old kindergarten project when your teacher made you make constellations. Not sure if anyone remembers Tak four-nine-eight but if you do that means you were in my grade and well maybe we should have told miss Kravitz about what Austin Brown was doing when he went outside the next day

I'm sure some of you may be wondering where [REDACTED] is but rest assured that he is fine. The boss and him disagreed on something and well he's no longer at the radio station at all. You can still find them of course down at the old Cafe near the cemetery to be exact, our Westside cemetery the please don't bring up the radio station. my boss informed me that if you do then his head will explode, which I'm sure just means you're giving me migraine but it would be a shame if you had to trouble the new young couple who moved in to clean it up!

Oh well listen to me going on and on, why did I give Ryan a shot at talking? remember everyone know mean letter sent to the station or else we will find you and I'm sure mr. When's wouldn't have a problem with me asking if I could borrow Bowie for a bit has anyone seen him lately? Such a lovely dog! He's growing again now he's roughly at nine feet and a second head is finally opened its eyes!

*the feed is cut suddenly whatever trance you were in his interrupted but what sounds like screams there static but just as fast as you were throwing your caught again as a radio host coughs*

Dallon Weekes: aha, my apologies, went off topic there. Go ahead Ryan

Ryan Seaman: um, thanks Dallon... So the... The weather this week has been pretty hectic right? I hate to be the cleaners with all those fish and frogs being dropped from the clouds today.... Wait wha.... What that's...that isn't normal

Dallon Weekes: of course it isn't Ryan! that's why you're telling the weather report, to report the strange weather

Ryan Seaman: oh, yeah I guess. right so like I said fish and frogs are raining from the clouds today around seven and didn't stop until ten-thirty. The cleaners had their hands full today because night school got out early-wait night school? What did they get out at-

Dallon Weekes: Ryan focus please

Ryan Seaman: the students are snatching up frogs and throwing them at each other, apparently when frogs make impact they pop into little green cotton balls. Who knew right, you think they were full of blood and guts but apparently these were special cloud frogs

*you notice Ryan son and mechanical then, as if a robot had taken his place momentarily. There is a static again though faint music is heard through it almost like a soft music box with its metallic notes*

Dallon Weekes: that was only had for the weather today, I'd say Ryan too great for his first time wouldn't you all? Anyway on to the news! We've got quite the interesting plethora today folks; like Ryan said some night school students thought it would be fun to throw frogs at each other like water balloons but instead of Gore like one might expect cotton balls dyed neon green fell to the streets. several students have now made themselves Cotton bowl rabbit pets and animal control is scratching their head as to whether they can detain these creatures and if they can even be classified as animals

next we have Cain's annual town meeting and I hope all of you will be willing to come seeing as how it's not only a welcome to Ryan but also to discuss what to do about the town hall infestation. I don't know about you all but the thought of skeletons just walking about is a bit unnerving to me especially since I'd rather not have to awkwardly handsome and back their arm if it falls off. the mayor thinks maybe we could use the old Craven estate to house them until they can find places for themselves, which I think is a nice idea but we have to make sure the floors were secure no one likes following through.

Ryan Seaman: skeletons are just piles of bones though they can't move on their own

Dallon Weekes: *laughs* well of course Ryan! that's why they're ghosts are possessing their skeletons, come on, everyone knows that kind of logic. but Ryan makes a good point if we do decide to send them to the Craven estate I ask all of you here and Cain to please participate and make sure none of them are injured and reduce the piles of bones-oh? Hang on...well hello! We've got a c aller! A little early I admit but alrighty. Hey Ryan, why don't you take it?

Ryan Seaman: yeah okay *a phone line clicks* hey, you're on the air

A female voice, young and probably in middle school: hi I know this is really early for the caller segment- oh and um, welcome to Cain! I think you're doing a really great job so far. anyway I don't know how long you've been here, but there's the cemetery south of town where some of us go to the library nearby and the zombie guy is back

Ryan Seaman: oh uh- first thanks for the compliment but I haven't been in Cain long...I think... so what zombie guy? Oh and who's calling

The caller: my name is Jenna,Jenna Wilkins. I don't know the zombie guys name, I can tell you his hair is green though and he has white eyes. Dallon did a segment on him last week weren't you liste-

Dallon Weekes: thank you for calling it another sighting, Jenna! It is very much appreciated. Can you please tell us what the zombies up to?

Jenna: oh, yeah sure. He's uh.... Well he's just walking like he always is. I mean he waved to me and my friend when we were leaving the library but he's not doing much like always

Dallon Weekes: well it's nice to know he's so friendly! Thank you again for calling in another sighting, Jenna, I hope you have a nice day

Jenna: wait but-

*the call is disconnected is a heavy sigh that clearly means irritation followed by slightly feared whimpering but not from the sigher*

Dallon Weekes: how about we do our caller segment now? however I'm going to put a rule down, don't ask Ryan questions about how long he's been in town. That's quite rude of all of you so I ask that you respect my rule. Ryan I think we have another caller, line four?

Ryan Seaman: hi, you're on the air

The caller: hey Jay Rockport. I don't know what that Jenna girl was talking about but uh, the zombie guy was just outside my work? He always stares about this one window of this abandoned apartment. there's a priest who always hangs around outside there too but the zombie kid just takes off running-and I mean it when I say running, we're lucky he doesn't try biting anyone

Ryan Seaman: but that's kind of impossible don't you think Mr. Rockport? Zombies can't teleport-wait zombies aren't even-

*again there's an explosion of static that makes you jump, what the hell just happened? it doesn't make any sense what you're seeing but the radio looks as if it's glitching and turning into mist all at once. In a hurried tone, you hear the first host again*

Dallon Weekes: thank you all for tuning in! I'm afraid we have to cut the segment short too many callers are causing our signals to ah-malfunction! Yes, a malfunction! tune in tomorrow at the same time as always to hear stories from a town with a modern day Cain

*first you blink, a little confused to be truthful, because what just happened within maybe the last hour? At least it feels like an hour to you. Frowning, you sit up and think you must have just fallen asleep wherever you were. for some reason a part of your mind is telling you to look at a certain area of the room... But for what? There's nothing there, you must just be really tired. So you walk yourself to your room and curl up under the covers, letting sleep slowly blanket you into a dreamless night*

[waha-carana-blog]

Here’s a thread of some stuff that happens as you get older that folks don’t really talk about... (Most of this will be about emotional or interpersonal stuff, not necessarily “holy crap does your body break down and fast” stuff.)

—One day you will notice your friends are aging. It’s not bad, but it is a transition. Your friends will age at different rates. Sometimes their kids will look exactly like they did when you met them. This will make your heart ache in a lovely way. They see the same in you.

—You will go to concerts of bands you loved in high school and college - controversial, youth-oriented, angsts, anti-establishment bands - and everyone there will be old.

—You will likely look at photos of young you and marvel at how fucking luminously beautiful you were and remember that when that picture was taken, you hated how you looked more than anything else in the world.

—Teenagers will no longer see you.

—One day, you’ll realize that you haven’t shopped in/on a particular clothing store or site that you love and you’ll wander over to it and every item of clothing will suddenly seem completely foreign and perplexing in style.

—One day, you’ll realize that you haven’t shopped in/on a particular clothing store or site that you love and you’ll wander over to it and every item of clothing will suddenly seem completely foreign and perplexing in style.

—The trends of your youth WILL come back, just like your parents said when theirs did, but they’ll be slightly altered in color or cut or notions.

—You will likely forget huge chunks of your past — things that seemed like life or death at the time. Something will remind you, and you’ll realize how that hurt or fear melted away over time, and you didn’t even notice it go.

—Your friends will remember completely different shit from when you were kids that you don’t remember at all, and vice versa. Some of the stories won’t even sound like you. Because you’ve forgotten a bit of who you were then. This may be unsettling.

—If you kept a journal and you reread it, you may not like who you were in it. You may feel guttingly sad for young you. You may long to go back (likely not... but some folks do!). You may toy with destroying the journals. Some of you will.

—Some of your friends (or you) will have a legit mid-life crisis and you will see it happen in real time. And you will marvel that mid-life crises are real things that happen. And that friend will want to talk about their running/new car/affair and you’ll be so bored.

—You will likely be lucky enough to really know yourself now. To love the things about you that you hated for so long. You will still have problems, but you will have a better understanding of your core values and how to deal with them.

—Longtime friendships will often reach a level of comfort and understanding that you never expected or even thought to imagine. Other friendships may fade, but it’ll be okay. You may make new friendships, which will be liberating. They only know current you.

—Yesterday, in a meeting, I looked around the table, at all the grown-up, authority figure faces, and realized they’re probably all my age - “adult”. There will never be a magic moment when I become an adult in my own eyes but reality happened anyway.

—Younger folks may ask you for advice. And you have some! But it’ll feel weird because it reminds you when you felt that problem was insurmountable. You’ll want to tell them everything will be okay but realize they have to learn that themselves. (You tell them anyway.)

—You may physically not be able to do a thing you used to and loved to do, or it will become much more difficult. This will rock you to your core. It’ll feel like the death of a part of you. A core thing that made you, you. This will hopefully pass, but it’ll ache.

—When you talk about aging to an older person, they will likely tell you to “just wait...”. And this may scare you. Or it may make that youthful contrariness spark. But they’re usually right and you’ll say something similar when you reach that age.

—One day, you’ll get in your feelings and wax rhapsodic about the beautiful pain of growing older to a bunch of strangers on the internet. I mean, maybe. Hypothetically speaking.

As with everything, this thread cannot speak to or cover every persons’ experience, and I’d never expect it to. If your experience differs from what I’ve talked about, please feel free to add!

For reference, since the speculation is thick in here (and because vanity still hasn't left me), I'm in my early 40s.

—If you have been in a relationship for a while, your partner may lament getting older or looking different or some such. You don't understand--because in your eyes, that person is still a luminous being, and you are SO DAMN LUCKY to be together.

—You will watch those you love dearly pass away. You always had more plans with them and the timing is never, ever right. It sucks. It hurts. You sometimes feel so much pain, you don't know how to go on. But you do. And you find memories of them again in others.

—You will realize that romantic heartache has an expiration date, but not before spending what feels like years furiously aching.

—Here’s one that I wasn’t prepared for: You will start to meet people who are *younger than you* who remind you of your parents, or of other adults you knew as a kid.

—That day you remember being a teenager in a hurry to be an adult, and now you are wondering how much time you have left!

—You will suddenly realize that you have a deep instinct to feed people in their early 20s. And you will realize, while trying to articulate this, that you desperately want to refer to them as “kids.”

—You completely lose any ability to gauge another person’s age. High school seniors look like they’re either twelve, or thirty.

—One day the kids will be grown and the career is over, and you’ll wonder who you are.

—Your friends will start to gets sick, like really sick - more than one - and you will feel your mortality in a way you never have before.

—Time passes in a completely different way. You learn that the world does not stop for anything. No hurt, event or moment can stop it. It is painful and comforting at the same time. You will wonder about the people who did not survive being young and miss not seeing them age.

—You'll see someone younger ppl have a "brilliant plan to fix ___." You'll know exactly where it will fail and what can maybe be done to make it not fail, b/c you've had that idea. You'll tell them & hope for the best. They won't listen. You'll get no pleasure from their failure.

—You will hear your song, the song that meant everything to you when you were 17, and you’ll be instantly transported back to that place and time. The song will end and you’ll realize that you’re actually in the canned goods aisle at Safeway.

—You’ll see a pub where you used to go with a friend on Saturday nights, except that friend has passed away now, and the pub is being turned into 31 bespoke residences.

—You wonder when you’re finally going to have it all together like your parents did and then realize that your parents never really had it together either.

—You will reread books that totally transformed your young life and it won’t hold your attention long enough to finish it.

—You will one day find that u r now the steadying hand, the explainer of things, the support/maker of life altering decisions for your parent/s. You will wonder at when this reversal of roles happened. And you will need to remind yourself what a privilege this new role is.

—You will tell younger people about places (buildings, establishments, etc.) that used to be here and they will probably be bored by it.

—You will write poems and lyrics in your teens. You will destroy them in your twenties. You will regret this in your thirties.

—You begin to realize how much older you’ve become when one of your kids is having a tough time emotionally and it dawns on you that actually they’re going through a mid-life crises.

—If you’re like me and lucky enough to have been with the same person since high school, you both will be insecure about not looking how you did back then despite the fact that when you look at each other, that person you fell for is all you see.

—You'll notice your pets getting older - maybe they're less active, maybe they're getting fatter or thinner or more cuddly, or maybe their fur changes slightly. This will at the same time be cute and lovely, but also a stark reminder they might not be around much longer.