top of page
Writer's pictureEmily Bagg

I’m Reading Stories About Fairies and I’m Starting To Get Lines On My Face

In this article, Emily Bagg writes about her love of fantasy romance novels, her ambivalence towards growing up in the conventional sense, and feeling as though you're 'behind' in life.



"How can I be more than a quarter of a century old and still feel like I’ve only just discovered myself? I cannot possibly be expected to know what I want for the next fifty years (at least), can I?"

I realise that everyone is on their own path.


I have often said to myself and others “how boring would the world be if we were all the same?” I love that there are so many different kinds of people on Earth who all like different things and wear different clothes and speak different languages and look different and spend their time differently. Sometimes, when I am out and about in the world, I’ll look at a stranger and find myself with a thickness in my throat and tears in my eyes that I do not know them, that they have this whole life with its own issues and joys and quirks, and I will not get to experience them and the beauty of it.


But, feeling all of this and reminding myself of these facts, unfortunately, doesn’t stop me from looking at myself and the things I like and how I dress and how I speak and how I spend my time and thinking that it is wrong. I have little to no empathy for myself when it comes to looking at my life and comparing it to those around me. I automatically think that I am the one on the wrong path.


I’ve recently entered into my late twenties. This is something that has brought me a considerable amount of stress and agony for no other reason than I have been conditioned by society to feel like “getting older” is bad. In actuality, I have found that with every passing year, I become more autonomous, more body positive, more self-possessed. And, dare I say, I just generally like myself more and more as the time goes on—forced proximity is one of my favourite tropes afterall. It is certainly not all flowers and roses between me and me just yet, but we are slowly getting there.


It just becomes a million times harder when I look at myself compared to literally any other human being.


One of the things that I have noticed since entering into my late twenties is that all the people I went to highschool with are starting to “settle down”. All these incredibly important milestones are happening before my eyes to people who have populated my childhood, who I have memories of when I was young. And I look at these people and feel their happiness! They are establishing themselves in their own lives. Every few weeks I feel like I get wonderful, beautiful, joyful news about people getting engaged, getting married, getting pregnant, getting new houses, getting new ladder-climbing jobs, getting things I am not.


And, what am I doing at the tender age of twenty-eight? Most likely feeling utterly consumed while reading a fantasy romance book or some insanely overly-long fanfiction or obsessing over Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction and the way she says the word “disco”. Hyper-fixations that I had when I was thirteen are still alive and well. I care very little about wanting to find a place to live for more than a year, saying “I do” to anything other than the question “Who wants to go to the cinema?,” or even briefly glancing at a child, let alone having one.


This thought was particularly distressing to me. The idea that, compared to my so-called peers, my life was so vastly different. My apparent wants and needs were dramatically different to theirs. They were all not just miles ahead of me, but running in a whole fucking different race! And then questions naturally arise: Should I be starting to look for a long-term partner? Should I be thinking about getting married? Is it bad that my body clock is ticking but I have no interest in children? Should I start planning now for feelings I might have in five years, when I am not even sure that I am going to even have these feelings?


“I’m reading stories about fairies and I’m starting to get lines on my face” is a line pulled straight from one of my therapy sessions. I remembered it because it made my therapist chuckle—a feat that invariably makes me feel like I am ‘winning’ at therapy—and also perfectly describes the out-of-place-in-time feeling that has been chasing me.


There seems to be a diametric opposition or conflict concerning the way I feel on the inside and what the physical queues of my body bely. How can I be more than a quarter of a century old and still feel like I’ve only just discovered myself. I cannot possibly be expected to know what I want for the next fifty years (at least), can I?


But other people seem to. And I cannot help but feel that I am the one that is lacking in this scenario. That I am doing adulthood “incorrectly.” That I have been built wrong. That I missed the day where everyone around me received the impulse to want these things in a tangible sense, and not just because society was telling them that they should. I was probably at home watching Twilight.


I’m sure that there is a really, easily understandable psychological reason behind this, too. How my history of bad mental health in combination with losing a parent before my frontal lobe fully developed could possibly account for my being unable to think about the future beyond a year in advance. How the abrupt and devastating loss of my mother less than two months before my twentieth birthday has impacted my ability to want anything at all because it could be taken away from me at a moment's notice. How the lure of escapism has become integral to my survival, a core coping mechanism that has evolved into a crutch made up of books, movies, and music.


Regardless of the cause, the symptoms have not felt quite so pronounced in a long time.

But if you asked me: “Emily, do you want to change that? If you could possibly go back, turn off the television, and go back in life to receive your very own dose of neurotypical-societal wants, would you?” I honestly can’t tell you what my answer would be. My life’s longing to fit in and be the same as those around me and feel a sense belonging is at war with my very innate belief that everyone being the same and wanting the same things would be so goddamn fucking boring! It would be hellish! It would be something out of a nightmare! And I would most likely be raring and screaming and dreaming that I could be different, want different things, feel different things.


Besides, as much as I live in my own head, imagining worlds and dreaming up scenarios and making up stories, I realise that wishing that I was built different, or more “correct,” is a futile exercise that does nothing but set me up for a failure that will endure. I’m not saying that I don’t do it though; I was, unfortunately, definitely in line the day they doled out depression, and she doesn’t like me to have nice things all that often.


But, as I endeavour to stick out my late twenties, I am going to try my very best to remind myself that the way that I am is alright. It is absolutely fine that I do not have things that those around me have, that I do not want what those around me want, that I do not even need them.


And, if there is an age limit on reading stories about fairies, these perceived rules seem kind of fucking dumb anyhow.


 


Emily Bagg is a writer originally from Cape Town in South Africa, now living in Galway, in Ireland. She's worked as an editor and copywriter, and is now looking forward to celebrating being TOO LOUD.


Comments


bottom of page