On regression and folding laundry
Is this that mid-life crisis they’re talking about?
A few weeks ago, I caught up with an old friend.
I feel like I say this a lot: "old friend". It's as if I've been in this world for so long and have accumulated not only a lot of friends from various points of my long life, but that they've all known me in the distant past of which we now have all grown up from. I’ve definitely not been in this world for so long (so long is like 60, guys) but we have all definitely gotten older.
She was my church mate. We went to youth camp together, shared bunk beds, stories, and crushes together. We used to stayed on the phone for hours talking about everything and nothing at all. That was 2005.
In 2006, my life changed when I unexpectedly became a mum. Things also happened in that church (as all churches do). There were people who left, including her family, and we never saw each other again.
Now here’s where the perks of social media comes in: A week before we saw each other, I was scrolling through Instagram and saw her story that she was in Sydney. Not wanting to take much of her time, I sent her a quick message: “You’re here! Enjoy!”
Out of that small statement emerged a meet-up that was totally unexpected but definitely welcomed. She asked if we could meet up if I had the time. I made time. She did, too. It was meant to just be brunch but it turned into a whole day of chatting and reminiscing, trying to fill in the gaps of our full lives from the last youth camp to now—21 years. That’s literally someone’s age. One year older than my daughter’s. And in those years, mistakes were made, hometowns changed, and life became a little less simple and a lot more complex.
She lives in Singapore now. I live in Sydney. We talked about friendships made and friendships lost. We randomly talked about what part of living alone, in a completely new country, we absolutely hated. I dreaded being sick. I was fortunate enough to have my mum take care of me when I was still living back home. There would be food on the table whenever I needed to eat, and sometimes, it’s even brought to my room as I lay there suffering. So no, I was not keen to get sick alone in a country where most shops close at 5pm.
Laundry was her enemy. Not the washing part, but the folding part. “Why does it never end?” We laughed at our petty gripes but real life struggles of forging our own path away from our traditional Filipino culture of staying home and being sheltered to a fault.
We found ourselves on a ferry to Manly. We laughed a lot. I laughed a lot. I don’t think I laughed that much with a friend in a while.
While staring at the glistening ocean and the rumble of the ship underneath us, we talked about toxic relationships and common friends… where people are now. The 21-year gap was filled so quickly that day. It was a recap done in a span of hours over brunch, coffee (matcha for me), long walks, two ferry rides, the beach, and then home.
I came out of that meet-up feeling like a part of myself was reconciled. I almost forgot the version of me that was living in the time I begun to be friends with her. I was naive and immature—we both were—but we were also full of life.
We told each other we still feel the same as when we were younger. Like whenever we mention our ages, it seems detached and foreign to us, because who we are (who we still are) feels like the same 16-17 year old girl trying to navigate life with hope and just pure fun.
“I actually feel like I’ve regressed,” she laughed.
Is it regression though when you’ve managed to keep the part of you that usually gets dulled down by adulthood? Is it regression if you’ve regained a lost part of you that society thinks only exists when you’re younger?
If we’re now calling that regression then let me regress. Let me remember all the old parts of myself so I value who I am now, so I’m able to pinpoint which ones to keep and which ones to learn from and do away with. Let me remember how I used to laugh, act, and dream and not care about what people think. Let me be older than some of my peers but let me be young at heart.
And if I sound crazy, then let me be. Nobody gave us a roadmap to navigating our 30s/40s. Maybe this is that mid-life crisis they’re talking about. Or maybe we just need to suck it up and start folding our laundry.