Feeling Old: Leaving your 20s in the 2020s
A younger friend recently asked why I (and many others my age) make so many comments about being old. After some thought, I realized a big part of this was related to experiencing specific meaningful life stages during the pandemic. In 2019, I could (and often did) stay up late at parties, survive on very little sleep, and run on my own willpower alone. I didn't usually need to think too hard about any of this in terms of trade offs, and thus had the ability to be way more spontaneous about it all. If a friend invited me out, I could say yes that night, with no planning ahead, and have a good time. Then lockdown hit, and everything shut down. During this time, I got divorced, turned 30, and made a bunch of other huge life changes. In normal times, I probably would have started to see my stamina decline. I would have noticed at first that my body would hurt more the day after a night out. Then I'd start to notice myself losing energy earlier and earlier. But things didn't pl