You will never be this young again
Notes on friendship, travel and a life well-lived
Your feet are sandy. You hate the feeling of it between your toes, but you are on a beach in Puglia, Italy. For the past two hours, you’ve been cycling between napping, reading, and hopping into the crystalline waters of the Adriatic Sea. Sweat pools in the crevices of your body, and when it begins to annoy you, you take a quick dip. The water is fresh, a degree above unpleasant, but your breath still catches as you wade out deeper.
Your book is dog-eared, and words have smudged beneath your fingers, greasy from slathering yourself in suncream. You are more liberal with your applications and have vowed never again to buy below 30 SPF, hoping the nonchalance you used to have for sun protection won’t have any long-term effects.
On either side of your lounger, you’re flanked by friends. They are a group you don’t get to see often. Everyone is engaged in the same cycles (napping, reading, paddling) just on slightly different time frames. Few words pass between you, but you’re completely at ease in each other’s company.
You will never be this young again.
Your trip began in Rome. The opportunity was there and you took it - you’ve never been before. In passing, your Dad said it was somewhere he’d love to visit with you and your siblings. The fact he never got to crosses your mind.
In the 36 hours before your train leaves for the south, you try to see as much of the city as possible. You rack your brain for anything you remember about the Roman Empire from studying Classics at A-level. Your exams were 12 years ago, and you didn’t do very well (you had a bias for the modules on Ancient Greece). Random facts intermittently float back to you. Caesar was killed on the Ides of March! Augustus shut the Gates of Janus three times to symbolise peace! Triumvirate! In the intervening years since school, there are a great many other things that have taken up space in your brain. You won’t know what’s been retained until confronted with the reality of what you have forgotten. Still, you will never be this young again.
As you hopelessly try to squeeze nearly 3000 years of history and culture into one weekend, your phone starts overheating. You’re hot and dehydrated. Your feet hurt, and you need to take regular breaks to sit. You’re tired, but it’s worth it. You can sleep when you’re dead! You’ll sleep when you return to your hotel before 9pm, make a cup of peppermint tea and watch Rivals in bed. You’ll sleep when you go back home to London in 10 days. You won’t complain outwardly about how tired you are. The evidence of your new experiences (such as being gorgeously bronzed and well-fed) will make it difficult for anyone to have sympathy for you.
You eat pasta for lunch. And dinner. Carbonara is one of your favourite foods, and you’ve been looking forward to eating it in heaped bowlfuls. You have maritozzo for breakfast, a sweet treat consisting of a bun topped with a very generous portion of cream. You’re sensitive to lactose but decide it’s worth the risk. You will never be this young again!
In Puglia, you’re home before 10pm every night. You have no desire to spend each evening at a bar or staying out late. At the apartment, you are four girls bundled onto the bed, swapping stories and swinging your legs in the air. You’re wearing pyjamas and you giggle at silly videos you’ve found to show each other. You consult each other on outfits, style each other’s hair and share toiletries. You will never be this young again.
A friend’s wedding, the second in this group, was the reason for the trip. Your brother also got married two weeks ago, but none of your other friends are married. You are single, it’s not on your radar. Though you’ve noticed your ambivalence towards marriage has shifted. It feels like something you could want or imagine in your future. The edges of it begin to enter your periphery.
No one in your immediate friendship group has had a baby yet. Some friends of your past have, and some of your friends are aunties and uncles, or their friends might have had a baby. You receive a text that one such friend of a friend had her baby at the weekend when you were away. It is something still unfathomable to you as your life currently looks. You are aware that these kinds of (child-free) trips have an expiry date. It is an inevitability coming into view just over the horizon line. You will never be this young again.
The wedding is in Greece, so you fly to Athens and rent a car. You reminisce about previous road trips taken together in the ten years since you all met. You make a playlist with the best songs, the ones that remind you of being 20. You sing along (badly). The music blares out of the speakers. Roses by The Chainsmokers. Never Be Like You by Flume. All My Friends by Snakehips. Oh, how young you were then - and you will never be this young again.
Watching another friend get married is still as strange as it was the first time four months ago. You dance and make friends with strangers. You endure a glass of coconut water before bed because your friend told you it helps keep a hangover at bay. These days, you take precautions more seriously and are willing to try almost anything. Your head still hurts when you wake up. You will never be this young again.
You make loose plans for the next trip while on the current trip. You’re keen to ensure there will be a next time, but you doubt everyone will make it. Whether everyone will be in the same room together again - until the next wedding, perhaps.
Life gets in the way. The phrase used to make your eyes roll involuntarily, but the older you get, you realise cliches stand the test of time because they are experiences shared en masse. You think back to when you left school and vowed you would never lose touch. When the idea of not seeing you friends every single day was an impossibility. You are so grateful for every opportunity you have to create new memories with friends and to travel. You wonder whether or not it will remain a constant. The war(s), rising oil prices, and the cost of living crisis linger in your thoughts. What will the world look like for the next generation? And the next? You will never be this young again.
Back in Athens, before flying home, you climb the Acropolis again. You are desperate to stand by yourself on top of the world and to feel small. To feel awe and a sense of belonging. Connection. You plan to write about it.
You look out over the city. The rest of your summer stretches out ahead of you.
You will never be this young again.
