I may or may not be a little drunk as I type this little word essay out but man I’m a year older. And now I can’t go inverting that no more because I am actually finally a fucking 20 year old. TWENTY. Baby, new decade, ooh boy, that’s scary and overwhelming and big and just mad, because I don’t know what to really expect, I don’t know what to think or feel about it.

Ageing is scary as fuck man, and you know birthdays are just weird. They’re like this weird, gigantic, anxious spotlight shun upon you to remind everyone that you are older and you will be maturing and becoming more and more immersed into this so called “life” and that exact part of it, that wholly overwhelming part of it that makes me so insecure about it, that’s also the part that makes this day make me feel very insignificant and small because you’re compared among life and you just realise how fucking small you are in the overall scheme of the universe but I think that ridiculed comparison also creates for a feeling of hope and true ambition that nothing else in life can truly emulate.

As Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You plays as I write this, I’m left reflecting on what’s most important to me as I enter this new, third decade of my life - realising my dreams and becoming a filmmaker, love, friendship, movies, adventures, new memories. There’s so much to regret and look back on, but there’s no point in any of that. Lamenting on the past only evokes a kind of reminiscent nostalgia you can’t capture anymore beyond that past, it isn’t salvageable in the present, so why waste opportunity on what’s gone when posterity lies ahead in such opportune, hopeful sentiments?

And now as Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling In Love transitions into Joni Mitchell’s A Case of You on my latest love playlist on spotify, I’m sat thinking about the future and what it holds. You know, I kinda believe in astrology or I like to because it seems to match reality often? And supposedly, *big supposedly there*, 2021 is supposed to be my fucking year so cheers to that, I do hope that’s real. I’ve read there’s much to find in this year regarding love and posterity so if that’s the case, baby, bring on the rest of the year, I’m excited about the future as I am uncertain but to be fearful is to be human, and I know how cheesy that sounds but I am intoxicated so you’ll have to excuse anything on that!

And now as Cheap Trick’s I Want You To Want Me plays (yes, this is a fantastic playlist) I’m starting to feel a kind of optimism feel the void of uncertainty about the future and all its prospects. I’ve learned over the last year that expectations are absolute shit, call that some kind of nihilism but I perceive it as reality, and a kind of tangibility to life I should really accept, which I gladly have in the form of being real about things because not everything can last, not everything stays, you’ve just got yourself to depend on and sometimes, maybe sometimes, that desolate solitude is a good enough place to start on a journey to somewhere. The road to where we all want to be starts with ourselves, yeah...

And now as A Waltz For A Night plays (yes, come on, my playlist is a banger, follow it!), I think of specifics, and what makes me love this life even through all the weird heartbreaks and downs, after two decades, CHRIST i’m two decades, that’s old, GOD... i love films, how they are, how they’re made, how they make you feel, it’s kinda fucking extraordinary that they are real and you can make them and that’s what i want to do, i have all these ideas and i want to make them a reality and i can’t wait to do so and live out my passion and grow that ambition. Love, being love, giving love, you guys get the point! Meeting new friends, meeting and spending more time with the ones you already have and love and cherish (like for me, most of the people who will be reading this or taking the time to bother getting through this). Making new memories through new adventures through life. That’s my big goal this year, to live and experience a whole lot more, myself but also with others, because as ONE OF my favourite series’ said in its finale (I believe) - and yes I said one of because I think something else I’ve been watching recently has replaced it as my favourite - “whatever you do in this life, it’s not legendary, unless your friends are there to see it,” and I think that’s the absolute poetry and beauty of friendship and lifelong friendships that feel more like family than they do anything else because that bond is unbreakably close.

And as The Maccabees’s immaculate Grew Up At Midnight plays (my music taste is superior), I’m left happy over how this new piece of television media that I’ve been excessively watching recently has taught me so much about life and love and expectations and reality and being yourself and having to be there for yourself because you come first. It’s a big series that I really love and cherish and it’s my favourite thing ever and I think it really might be my new favourite series, and it involves filmmaking and love, two of my big favourite things and I love that about it. I’m obsessed!

And now Fleetwood Mac’s truly intensely evocative Landslide plays as I’m left thankful over everyone who has come and gone and I miss some people and some bonds are gone or can’t be repaired but some still remain and I’m so glad for all of you who have remained and been there for me. “Well, I’ve been afraid of changing”... “But time makes you bolder, Even children get older, And I’m getting older too” sings the masterful Stevie Nicks in this particular song and that’s true, I’m scared of everything but life is what it is and there’s no point being scared in what’s only natural and real to you, the most real thing to you, unless we all live in a simulation but I really doubt we do. And now Elton John’s Your Song plays and I’m convinced about why i love the fear of it all, because all of us share it but we all feel so individual in that fear. I love it because we are all somehow connected in life and moving forward we are all together and it’s the communality of life that makes it so special and divinely human in its nature.

Here’s to more life. I’m excited and scared but more so excited for what this new decade holds. Filmmaking, friendship, adventure, memories, love - that’s what I’m holding optimism and hope for, an opportune time for posterity to strike in accordance to what I expect of it and more so what I hope of it. So here’s to another decade of being alive, I’ve already cheers to it but I’m looking beyond the horizon to what lies ahead and I certainly hope what lies ahead rests and prospers in what I want it to be. Thank you all for all the wishes today, love from me, have a great day, here’s to love!