Rehearsals for a Life Unsupervised

I think that one of the moments, or collection of moments, that I miss the most were the times that I began to practice at adulthood with a small group of friends. All of us tentatively trying to apply observed theory and the idea of how we thought things should look or be as we tried to cook a meal or we went on holiday or undertook a decidedly adult activity like go for a walk or attend an exhibition. Obviously we didn’t realise at the time we were performing at adulthood or we wouldn’t admit that we were patchworking together from books, films and tv shows ideas of how you began to build a picture of a parentally unsupervised life.

There was a nervousness to it all but the shared fact of general novelty that lay across us all calmed us, occasionally astounded by a friend that could suddenly drive (a pursuit for professionals and those with busy schedules previously) or someone that had fledgling knowledge of how to exist as an independent force of self-sustenance.

In hindsight I see, quite clearly, how there was a small gap in proceedings, a lull in the billowing sea of existence at this time. One that is designed for promise and reinvention. Moving through the childhood state and beginning to realise there might be an autonomous identity that I could put my arms through like a warm jumper and wear, should I choose.

I had a few of these moments, fairly interrupted by my own personal (and apocalyptic) approach to self-care, but I remember how full of people they were, and curiosity, joy and grace. We didn’t expect each other to know yet, we were all reaching a threshold of invention that can be a lonely casino of rolling dice. Fully unsure of how the chips land, but nonetheless with others alongside us, turning up.

Life gets real. These alien practices become the necessities of the mundane. The great peaks of having a driving license become mechanical issues on the side of the M25 when your phone dies and the great strangeness of newness becomes the ro