Thursday 14 April 2016

2030


It just struck me the other day that we are now closer to the year 2020 than we are to 2010. Which was like just a little while ago. That also makes us closer to the year 2030 than 2000. Which is freaky.

Altough the yeear 2000 does feel like a very long time ago, when one thinks back on everything that's been in between.

(Illustrating this post is a photo from 1999 - further away than 2030 that is - that has an actual analog light leak in it. No filters here no!)

But the same goes for when you talk about years and you think "10 years ago" would be somewhere around 1996 but that's twenty years ago already. If I really start thinking about it 1996 was indeed ages ago, I was just a kid. And everyday life was very different.  From what you did to how you did it and what you had to go along (no lattes back then no!) But 2006, that was ten years ago already? No way! THAT feels very scary. But, as we talked about this with a friend the other day we started going trough things we did in '06 and some everyday life details, realising that quite many things still have changed in a decade -I didn't get my first computer before 2005 for example; I read my emails at school back then and certainly not ten times per day like now -even though it feels like it went by with the blink of an eye.

I also realised my age is now closer to 50 than 20. Which is both totally something of an of course it is or whatever , and kind of terrifying at the same time. We were talking about age yesterday with Dag; I told him the cats are now ten years old, and then, mainly just stating it to myself, I said that that makes them "pretty old already". Dag then asked "Oh, so they will die soon?" to which I replied that not quite yet, although it will eventually happen one day. To which Dag replies, with his calmest and wisest voice, the one I use when I explain things to him:
"You know mom, one day each of us shall die."
(Then he listed pretty much every person and animal he knows that will all die one day, just to prove his point.) I still remember one night when I was about five, or max. six years old, lying in bed, thinking about how much I loved Christmas. Then I started calculating that my parents were 30 years old and that meant there would only be about fifty more Christmases to spend before they would DIE. And I felt so so sad when thinking about it and started crying; 50 Christmases felt like so little and Christmas was so awesome and it would all happen in no time. My mom came into the room asking what was going on. I didn't tell her why I cried, and I have remembered it like she got a little annoyed at my late-night-whining. I was really hurt that she did not (read my mind, apparently, and) appreciate me crying over her mortality.

It is actually funny how you can remember some thoughts and insights from your childhood, but you still cannot recall how it actually felt, or how you reasoned like that, how the exact thoughts were at that time. The brain can store so much but it can't store, how would one say it, the mind itself(?) as that constantly changes as life goes by. It's not the way you can save and choose to run an older version of your  operating system...  Memories of how one thought are more like headlines-  my parents would die one day, only fifty Christmases left - or a synposis. Well not only thoughs, but whole periods of times feel like a quick synposis when thinking back on them. I wish there'd be some way to record how the mind functioned and how it really felt at a certain time. And not only for childhood, also for the teenage years, (yikes). That  might help with the teenager here at home (during which discussions I always feel so very old). Or to serve as good and painful torture some ten, twenty years later. For oneself, that is. "Did I think like that?" Well, a regular recorder would do for the torturing part, just to get to hear teenage-oneself later in life. Teenage sarcasm is certainly not that refined yet and the lines are less quick that the youngster thinks, I have noticed. "Omg did I actually say that". Sometimes wish my parents would have recorded my shit. Or well, not really. But if it would've been common practice you know. I did keep a diary that I haven't ever really opened afterwards, but one thing I remember telling my self in my teenage years was the following: Remember, when you are fourteen you realise everything. You think so much about it all and you think about everything.
And it worked; I remember thinking that, but alas, I have no idea how my mind actually worked back then and what all those things, apart from the usual teenage stuff and time and the universe and so, I actually was thinking about were. (I was always one to stay up late at night back then as well, thinking about Things.)

When time and age and how fast things go gets to me (summer is on it's way but it will be Christmas  and winter and darkness here again in no time - see, little five-year-old-me was right- and then it will be not only 2030 but 2050 and I will still have the same things on my to-do-list, you know) I just try to think about the fact that time really does not exist at all, everything just is in a constant state of RIGHT NOW and that is all there is.
Which to be honest, does not exactly help me to start sleeping earlier at night either...



12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ihana, ihana kirjoitus!
Eeva

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The Freelancer's FashionBlog said...

Eeva: <3 :)

kfrogpath said...

Oh Ulrika! It is so very strange how our lives have changed without so much fuss as I thought there would be. All the things you expect to be the most epic and amazing things, when they come you end up just rolling along with them as if it weren't once such a huge deal. I think that's the thing that has struck me as I have "grown up". xx

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I feel I live like a teenager, only that now I pay the bills. I'm turning 40 very soon, and I feel that I still have that rebellion from my teens inside me. I still wanna do lots of things, learn new things, go to many places, etc, wear my converse sneakers and dye my hair. Have breakfast for dinner and have ice cream as many times as I want to without asking anyone... you see the pic.
I don't feel 40 at all, cause I still think my parents are 40.... I guess that being a grown up doesn't mean what it used to be 20 years ago.... anyway,very nice post!

The Freelancer's FashionBlog said...

kfrogpath : I know exactly what you mean!

Anonymous: Haha I know, my parents are still "40" as well! And you are right, life and society is different nowadays, and how we think of life, than it was for example when we were kids in the 70's and 80's. Does anyone even have a 30-year crisis anymore? Seems that 30-year olds are not even considered that "grown up" anylonger. And 40 does not equal middle aged anymore either, those who were middle aged when we were young still are. People still keep telling me that "you are still young" which is both true and false and fun and annoying depending on the issue :D
When I was younger and single (20+) I kind of wanted a partner, but in the same time had this fear of that that would mean all teh fun and crazy things would be over. And then I found myself in a relationship and realised I can still do all those things, go to places, go crazy and whatever, but now I had someone to do it with. Yes, some twelve years later it may seem a little obvious, but that way of thinking sometimes still sneaks on when it comes to aging. That there will be so much still to do while I'm sixty still and it will be just as great, only just a bit differnet. And who knows, we might very well still be in sneakers (or, me with heels) and dye our hair crazy colours :)

Anonymous said...

These kinds of things keep me up at night as well. I feel like I'm always practicing for the hard losses, which I guess means I'm still young. I feel old sometimes, though. I love that light-damaged picture of you. And I don't think I'll ever stop wearing Converse and dyeing my hair, even if I'm old (and my silver hairs take purple dye really well LOL).

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Claudia said...

Very nice post! (I will be 50 in the end of next year and still can’t believe it.) May i add this quote from Bernhard Shaw to this topic? It always seems so right:

“We don't stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing.”

Keep playing! ;-)

The Freelancer's FashionBlog said...

oshedesigns: :)

Claudia : It's a good quote indeed!

tfrv said...

Interesting musings, love the photograph too.

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