It's Summer so it's almost my birthday

Don't you know I'm the first woman in the world to turn 31

Hot, sticky and unable to sleep always sounds so romantic in books, and on film. Perhaps it would be in real life too if I could throw open a sash window to let the cool air from a country estate hit my face, or hear the throb and hum of New York City below. 

As it stands, I wrestle with my PVC window (closed because hay fever and moths), squeeze around the bed and trip over my annoying tower fan en route to the loo. 

As I wee, I reflect on turning 31 soon, reminiscing about what my 15 or 20-year-old self would have thought about reaching this non-milestone (abject horror). It’s funny, now I work with actual 20-year-olds at the bar, to be reminded of how awful and elderly the prospect of my 30s felt when I was just starting out in the previous decade. 

While it isn’t how I imagined it would be, I realise I have come to enjoy settling into the softness that comes with adulthood. No longer obsessively preoccupied with who’s dating who or wearing what or the invisible rulebook to being the coolest person at the party. 

This gradual rounding of my character would have once alarmed me. No, I won’t write cryptic captions on Instagram and no, I won’t pick fights about politics with obviously right-wing men at the pub, reciting carefully rehearsed arguments formed off a handful of articles I skim read in the Guardian.   

In fact I feel increasingly like the Mum in Saltburn every day, standing on the lawn with a martini stating “I’ve never wanted to know anything at all”. And the girl in 2013 diligently completing a UCAS application to study Politics would be appalled by this. But after a decade of caring (or at least pretending to care), I feel like I’ve done my time. At least now the election is over. To bow down, opt out and be free.  

After all, I’ve always felt envious of people who can surrender themselves to the random whims of the universe. Never planning, plotting, or over-engaging with anything around them. But did your laid-back friend who didn’t bother booking a removal van have any trouble moving house? And doesn’t your mate who seemingly doesn’t work much always have enough cash for a pint? 

Maybe the real lesson I’ve learned in the past decade is one of surrender. Surrendering to the actual person I truly am - not the one I’d like to project. Surrendering to the inevitability of it all, surrendering to those hot and sticky nights.