27 Club
“I used to believe
this to be everything.”
In Pride and Prejudice (2005), Charlotte Lucas says it best: “I’m twenty-seven years old. I’ve no money and no prospects. I’m already a burden to my parents. And I’m frightened.” I don’t know why twenty-seven feels so important, but it does. Maybe because I’m officially in my late twenties, no longer able to call myself a young adult. I’m just an adult, now, I think.
I always get super sad and nostalgic around my birthday — perks of being a Pisces and a poet. As I look back on the last year, I have to admit I’m disappointed. Rather than growing and changing for the better, I’ve regressed. I went from having my own apartment, income, and community, to living with my parents in my hometown, which has moved on without me. Most of my old haunts are gone — or so different I find no comfort in them. I walk to the playground attached to my elementary school, sit on the swings that are a little too small for me, and brood, like I’m seventeen instead of a decade older. Looking at the view from the top of the slide (also too small, now) is so funny in the way that makes me cry a little. I used to believe this to be everything. Nothing existed past where I could see.
Sometimes I think I might feel sad about getting older my whole life. Sometimes I think I’ll never feel like a real adult, like I know what I’m doing and where I’m going next. I wonder if there’s such a thing at all. But living gives me more chances to find out. Nothing is guaranteed except change and death. I should take my chances while I still have them.
I don’t know the remedy to these emotions, but my solutions so far are my usual ones: crying and writing and listening to lots of sad music. On that note, here are 27 songs for turning 27:
Everything’s Beautiful — Hiatus Kaiyote
“Didn’t you notice? / Don’t you know, love / Don’t you know everything’s beautiful?”
In Between Days — The Cure
“Yesterday I got so old / I felt like I could die / Yesterday I got so old / It made me want to cry”
Clueless — Beach Bunny
“Thought I’d be a different person, but it’s just a different life / If I got married tomorrow, I’d feel like a teenage wife”
Favourite — Fontaines D.C.
“And each new day, I get another year older… / Chewed into shape like a stone on the shore”
In Bloom — Neck Deep
“And stop digging it up or we’re never gonna / See it all in bloom”
Senior Skip Day — Mac Miller
“They say you waste time asleep, but I’m just trying to dream”
Wait a Minute! — WILLOW
“Some tings don’t work / Some tings are bound to be / Some tings, they hurt / And they tear apart me”
Man Overboard — blink-182
“Time keeps moving on and on and on (so sorry it’s over) / Soon we’ll all be gone”
Mayonaise — The Smashing Pumpkins
“I send a heart to all my dearies / When your life is so so dreary / Dream”
Change — Big Thief
“Would you live forever, never die / While everything around passes? / Would you smile forever, never cry / While everything you know passes?”
Caught in the Middle — Paramore
“I can’t think of getting old / It only makes me want to die / And I can’t think of who I was / ‘Cause it just makes me want to cry, cry cry”
I Don’t Like My Mind — Mitski
“And there’s another memory that gets stuck / Inside the walls of my skull, waiting for its turn to talk”
Gretel — Alex G
“I don’t wanna go back / Nobody’s gonna push me off track, uh-huh / I see what they do / Good people got something to lose, uh-huh”
Lost in My Mind — The Head And The Heart
“I get lost in my mind / Momma once told me / ‘You’re already home where you feel loved’ / I am lost in my mind”
Stop This Train — John Mayer
“So scared of getting older / I’m only good at being young”
Older — Lizzy McAlpine
“Mom’s gettin’ older, I’m wanting it back / Where no one is dying, and no one is hurt”
Deeper Well — Kacey Musgraves
“My Saturn has returned / When I turned twenty-seven, everything started to change”
No One Noticed (Extended) — The Marias
“Maybe I / Lost my mind / No one noticed / No one noticed”
20 Something — SZA
“Hopin’ my twenty-somethings won’t end / Hopin’ to keep the rest of my friends / Prayin’ the twenty-somethings don’t kill me / Don’t kill me”
evermore (ft. Bon Iver) — Taylor Swift
“Barefoot in the wildest winter, catchin’ my death…/ I had a feeling so peculiar / That this pain would be for / Evermore”
Comfort — Basement
“The picture frame / Has seen such better days / But on the wall it’s going to stay”
Endless — Pinegrove
“Is life kicking up dust right now? / Has life given up for you right now as well?”
Lover, You Should’ve Come Over — Jeff Buckley
“Too young to hold on / And too old to just break free and run”
Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year — Fall Out Boy
“Are we growing up or just going down? / It’s just a matter of time until we’re all found out”
Seventeen Going Under — Sam Fender
“…It begs to stick around / So it can fleece you of your beauty / And leave you spent with nowt to offer”
See You Soon — Coldplay
“I know, you lost your trust / I know, don’t lose your trust”
Home — Diana Ross
“Giving me enough time in my life to grow up / Time, be my friend / Let me start again”
Happy birthday to me :)
