You're 20? It's ok no one has to know babygirl

It’s a long-standing joke that I look older than I actually am. I suppose it started from puberty. The minute my height started closing the gap on my mom’s, people were already starting to ask if we were sisters. Which was funny because, at the time I felt we looked nothing alike. Over time as I have surpassed her in both height and size, the siblings allegations have continued. For a brief period of time, I was the largest person in my family – up until my brother decided to shoot up like a beanstalk.

I’ve always tended to make friends who are older than me. Not on purpose! It was usually something we’d discover later along into the friendship. Looking back, I wonder if I was drawn to them because I felt their level of maturity was something aspirational – or if they were drawn to me because they felt that I was on their level. Either way, I didn’t have many friends who were exactly my age.

This all started being a problem once I entered university.

I’ve had many a classmate (and even a few seniors) express their surprise when I revealed my age. “Oh, I thought you were older,” they’d say, mouths agape with shock. I’m a year younger than the majority of my classmates, yet many of them assumed I was older than they were.

I swear someone has made this exact face when I revealed my age once

At first, I found it funny. Then it was… jarring. I began to examine myself, wondering what it was that took away my youth. I didn’t have grey hairs, nor wrinkles. Maybe it’s the semi-permanent eyebags I’ve been bestowed from nights of studying. Or maybe it’s the formal clothes all the time. Maybe when I’m not wearing makeup I look older. Maybe when I wear makeup I look older. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Though, if I ever asked someone to explain it, they’d shrug and say “You just… seem older.”

As time went on, these comments began to grate on me. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder if I’ve lost some sort of youthful glow; if being a teenager gave you this almost invisible aura that you would only notice in its absence.

It felt like I had lost something…. And I began to wonder how to get it back.

I'm back!! I remembered I have a blog to update!! 

Everybody wants to be young. In an age of social media and cameras and the expectation to somehow always seem beautiful; looking young is the status quo. Take for example, smile lines. A fold of skin from the corners of your nose to the corners of your mouth. They develop from doing normal everyday thing, like talking, yawning, and most importantly, smiling. I have smile lines. I’ve always had a sunny disposition, and choosing positivity in a world full of pessimism has always been a conscious choice of mine. I didn’t know that this choice would have consequences on my appearance - that in moments where I’m not smiling, moments like when I’m focusing on a lecture, when I’m tired and want to go to bed, when I’m engrossed into a video essay, that these nasolabial folds would be noticeable on candid photos taken by my friends. They cast shadows on my face in a way that makes it different from the girl I was ten years ago.

I’ve watched people on Instagram reels my age promote anti-aging creams. Try to tell me that drinking through a straw is going to prevent wrinkles. Tell me to get on Ozempic. Tell me to ice my face every morning, noon and night. Tell me to get mini-fillers in my cheekbones, tell me to stick microneedles in my forehead twice a month, tell me to scan my face for the most minute of flaws and do everything in my power to be rid of them. No one wants to look old. To be old, is to be…

Ugly.

When I was a tweenager in the late 2010s, I wanted nothing more than to get a scene haircut and high-top converse and dress exactly like Avril Lavigne. My style icons of the time were those Rainbow Dash cosplayers who clipped neon-bright streaks of faux hair into their choppy layers and wore enough eyeliner to resemble a panda. I wanted big earrings and ripped jeans and stripy arm warmers. But whenever I eyed a particularly alternative piece of clothing at the mall, my mom would drag me off, assuring me I’d thank her later. (Which I now understand, but back then was the greatest betrayal.)

I was obsessed with these emo edits of disney characters back in the day

At that time of my life, my biggest problem was that I wasn’t going to be cool enough. Yes, I was a typical awkward glasses-wearing tweenager with enough acne to gross someone out. I got good grades practically without trying. I was a NERD. Capital N, capital E, capital R, capital D. Nerds were not cool.

Who didn’t want to be cool?

This complex about looking cool is something a lot of us have experienced, in our own ways. The media surrounding us tell us there’s only one way to be considered likeable, attractive, cool, or an it girl. Back then it was brightly coloured hair and giant boots, now its an ultra-skinny body and skin so flawless people would ask if you stole it from a baby. It’s strange how we often circle back to being our kid selves - I’m twenty, on the cusp of adulthood, the rest of my life ahead of me, and my biggest problem is the way I look.

Because, yes. Despite me laughing it off, I am a little offended that people think I look older than I actually am. And the more I think about it, the more absurd it feels.

me when yet another plastic surgeon pops up on my screen recommending buccal fat removal

I want to go back to the whole anti-aging rhetoric people online seem to be obsessed with. Why exactly do we want to look young? No one’s really told me about it. I just see these plastic surgeons explaining crow’s feet and telling me how many millilitres of botox I need based on the shape of my lips. The truth is people don’t actually need or even want to look young. They just want you to buy their anti-aging serum. They want you to tune in to their podcast where they reveal the ancient secrets of how women in the past stayed young. They want you to subscribe and like and share and use their code for 20% off.

Ah capitalism. How I enjoy blaming all modern problems on you.

Identity is ever-changing. I am definitely not the same scene-queen obsessed teenager I was 9 years ago (but I still do want to be the lead singer/guitarist of a punk rock indie band). I am not the same person I was 5 years ago, too, when I was graduating and still wobbled on my high heels. Heck, I’m not the same person I was yesterday. I discover new things about myself every day. Why does my appearance have to stay stagnant too? Why do I have to look perpetually young when I grow exponentially every day?  Things like smile lines and wrinkles and acne scars are minute threads in the expansive tapestry that is a human being’s identity.

Aging is a privilege. My posting in paediatrics has taught me that – and also a very emotional watch of Hamnet. Life can be taken away at any moment. Disease and illness can strike at any time. Take a look at the date today – how many years, days, minutes, and seconds have your lungs been breathing air? How many times has your heart beaten? Some of us will not get the luxury of old age, let alone aging in a healthy body. That’s why it frustrates me so much that we do not celebrate adulthood as much as we celebrate our youth.

Yes, being an adult is boring and stressful. But adulthood means new adventures, new things to learn, new people to meet and new stories you can tell. And is being a child really the best thing ever? I had no autonomy over the things I could do or wear or even watch. I couldn’t understand complex relationships or name difficult emotions, because I lacked the maturity and experience to do so. If you ask me, I’m actually a lot happier being an adult than I was when I was a tweenager. Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge is power.

me leaping from thought to thought in this essay 

Sometimes I think we are all a little too obsessed with nostalgia. I have a group of friends with whom I share the traumatic childhood experience of attending a school – let’s just say the experience was not ideal. When we first met up, a year after leaving that place, our conversations somehow always returned to it – we’d share stories, laugh over our old antics, and share a sense of relief that we escaped before it consumed us whole. But after a few more years, we realized we kept sharing the same old stories, kept going back to that time of our life, instead of focussing on what we were doing now.

I understand the allure of nostalgia – remembering a time of your life when things were simpler. You had less responsibilities, less worries, and all the more time in your hands to have fun. That sense of childhood wonder, the peace of mind, the way everything back then seemed funnier – it’s not going to come back. That’s the ugly truth – you can chase and reminisce and complain all you want, but your childhood is a phase of your life that you have to grow out of. If we forever keep turning around and wanting back the skin, the youth, the beauty and innocence we once had we will never look forward and see the wisdom, experience, maturity and relationships that we have right now.

Ageing is beautiful. Ageing is wonderful. I’ll joke about wishing I could go back to being a newborn with no thoughts, but truly I am perfectly content with the age that I currently am. So what if people think I look old? I’ll take it as a compliment. And please, for the love of God, if one day I start talking about getting Botox I need you to strangle me.

Elsa was never really the same after that botox overdose 

I started writing this when I had just turned twenty and it’s stayed on my desktop long enough that I am halfway to twenty one lol. Good news, I will soon be the same age as Elsa from Frozen. Who was the it girl of my generation so I will be expecting ice powers soon. This was a rather short but personal essay, and if you liked reading it PLEASE FOLLOW MY INSTAGRAM. MY SUBSTACK. ANYTHING PLEASE.

Oh, and the title of this blog post was taken from a video that I was constantly quoting around my birthday last year. It got to a point where I seriously asked my friends to put it on my birthday cake. 

the video in question

bye bye!!!!!

 

Talk to you later, world!

Joy ＼(ﾟｰﾟ＼)