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SUSIE GOLDSBROUGH | NOTEBOOK

I’m 25, and suddenly the future has passed

The Times

Last week, I turned 25. Other people’s birthdays, however epochal to them, are – like other people’s dreams – remote and uninteresting to everyone else. But this one came as something of a surprise to me. You never really believe that you’ll get older.

I know, I know: I am but a legless larva who has absolutely no right to lament or nostalgia. Except that I do. Birthdays – everyone’s, all of them, be they 16 or 75 – are festivals of melancholy. They are the only day on which we are allowed, even encouraged, to contemplate the personal consequences of time. That it passes. That it takes things with it. That it runs out. It’s why we need flowers and wrapping paper and thick,