My youth is firmly in the rearview mirror and a part of me is relieved.

Today is Youth Day in South Africa, a public holiday which commemorates the 1976 Soweto Uprising. The day is often marked by both loud and quiet acknowledgements of just how much freedom cost this country. My reflections this Youth Day were far less weighty, instead, I was struck by the fact that this would officially be the last one I would be able to celebrate as a “youth”. When the next one rolls around, I will be a real, full, card-carrying adult.

I will no longer be able to run for a leadership position in the ANC Youth League (dammit), forms will start grouping me with people who are 40+ (yikes), opportunities for the sprightly will consider my submissions with some disdain (“give the young ones a chance” or “make way” they’ll say) and to top it all off, my bone density is about to start an inevitable freefall which can only be quelled by lifting heavier weights.

But, there is a silver lining, this jumping of an invisible line into middle age also means I get to let go of so much. Past mistakes, past versions of myself, relationships and situations that have run their course. Turning 30 at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic meant that I didn’t quite feel I had aged because time was so warped by lockdowns and isolation, which significantly shrunk our lives. I remember blowing out my candles in my childhood home with just my mother, brother and father – extremely thankful to be alive, but rueful of what I had imagined that the moment would be like. Not just thankful that at that point none of us had the virus at the time or had succumbed to it yet, but to truly be alive, that wasn’t something my 27, 28 and 29-year-old self even wanted. To want to be alive was new.

So, I guess growing older has brought with it the will to live, which I am thankful for. It has provided me with what now seems like unabashed joy since. The certainty in who I am and what I want out of life has been more than just a second breath. The practice of patience, presence and rest has helped me become and feel like a real person again. And to that, I thank and am eternally indebted to time.

“I have never regretted walking out of a movie, I have many times regretted not walking out of a movie. Not finishing things is one of the great joys of life.”

– Marie Phillips, on This American Life, 791: Math or Magic?

So much so that I am almost militant about how I spend it (bar for when procrastination pays its languid visits). If something sucks for even 30 minutes, I’ll dip – no seriously, what are we doing? Not to say that I’m not tolerant of difficult or uncomfortable situations, especially those that are necessary (work, a funeral, a workout etc), but now, when I stray closer towards the edge of betraying myself to sustain being in a moment, I will always choose myself. Sometimes that looks like physically leaving, sometimes it is saying nothing further and other times it is just closing my laptop. Enduring anything for the sake of others is exhausting; real winners quit. Do I believe fundamentally that human beings owe each other things, absolutely, it just needn’t be everything, all the time. I have this one precious life and where possible, I am guarding it with my life, because not doing so previously nearly cost me, me. Is it selfish, yes. Is it right, also, yes.

**First appeared on my Substack.