Late Romantic began as a blog called ‘theexjournalist’ sometime around my late teens / early twenties. As I’ve moved tentatively towards placing greater values on privacy, professionality, and other projects, its appearance and content has changed, as has its hosting (1). It does appear to me that, however, over the years, the consistent function of Late Romantic has been to give a place to my overthinking of everything: from politics to partying to Pascal’s Wager, I’ve been giving advice to the masses (2) as I’ve established what I think through prose analysis and pretension.

With that in mind, to celebrate my 30th birthday, here are thirty pieces of miscellaneous contemplation and advice borne from experience. Since I will be (or perhaps have already) transformed into Miss Havisham and will henceforth never be leaving my house again, as befits a woman at this age, I will no longer be learning anything and this is as good as it gets, so do please take it as the sum of a life well-ish lived… until I pop up again in three weeks with some thoughts on Quakerism at Christmas, or Krzysztof Kieslowski and interior décor.

1. try to avoid the middle gear on a three-speed bike, they tend to stick.
2. the moments after leaving a gig, kicking discarded skiffs and system pumped with adrenaline, are the most inspiring thing.
3. never give a place or a song to a person; not wholly. it’s your love, don’t lose it.
4. Find A Job You Love And You’ll Never Work A Day In Your Life is a lie, but it does make it easier to get up in the morning if you’re going to something you value, and you’ll be working alongside people who share your values.
5. good manners will never hurt you. in the face of rudeness, play dumb.
6. create a password formula. make sure none of your sensitive information is online anywhere (I, for instance, don’t use my mother’s maiden name for anything, on the grounds that it’s her name and you don’t have to be a hacker to link us). don’t use your favourite things as a ‘secret answer’ unless you’re very decisive, or you may end up listing foods you enjoy over the phone at a bank teller and finding yourself subsequently locked out of your account.
7. speak, in human words, to the appropriate person, your problems or desires, as soon as you know them.
8. don’t pretend to know things that you don’t. it’s OK to not know things, and it’s OK to have only vaguely heard of things. don’t let anybody walk over your knowledge – don’t let people assume or disregard you.
9. there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. just enjoy things.
10. it’s OK to judge people, but only insofar as they’re giving you social cues from the way they dress, act or otherwise conduct themselves. these are not moral or value judgements, and you should use your information literacy to decode and act appropriately, putting people at ease, rather than using your narrow experiences to dismiss.
11. not every person who’s important to you will be with you forever. you don’t have space in your life for all these people, but that doesn’t diminish the value of the relationship you had.
12. there are no quick fixes. you already know the secret: you need to do the thing that’s awkward or depressing or limiting in some way, and anybody who says otherwise is selling something. drink water, take your meds, tidy up.
13. love is the sum of comfort, discussion, and outlook. find somebody compatible in those areas and you’ll have found happiness.
14. if you’re going to jaywalk, do it with awareness and confidence.
15. if you can, have a long-term and a mid-term savings pot: long-term is to put the deposit down on a flat, send your kids to school, buy a car; mid-term is to go on holiday or be able to buy nicer clothes. keep separate savings for christmas and birthdays, and only buy things you already wanted in the sales.
16. set appropriate, attainable targets. don’t try to change your life all at once or you’ll go back to your old ways in two weeks.
17. to get anything you want you will have to go through a rubbish bit in the middle. remember what you’re aiming for, and don’t chase temporary happinesses. finish things.
18. buy the good phone case, not to is a fool’s economy.
19. if you can fix a problem, or work towards fixing it, it’s churlish not to just because you didn’t start it or it doesn’t affect you. a problem is a problem.
20. don’t gamble on things you don’t understand: whether it’s cards or the stock market, assume you’ll lose the money if you don’t know more than the bookmaker. don’t play the lottery at all.
21. the people who come through for you in a crisis are never who you expect. come through for other peoples’ crises when you’re able, even if they’re not the people you’re closest to.
22. you will not regret walking away from the good job or the enviable relationship if it wasn’t right for you. walking away with dignity feels great. dignity feels great.
23. friendship breakups are harder than romantic ones.
24. the best art comes from people who used to be famous and celebrated. they usually still have all those qualities that made them so, but have had more complex life experiences and are usually less stymied by what will be popular. love popular things, but keep loving what you love even when they’re not cool any more.
25. the older people were right: headphones will ruin your ears, heels will ruin your back, plucking will ruin your eyebrows, that degree might not help you get a job, etc ad infinitum… but these things you shouldn’t have done will also come to define you, and are worth it in their own way. if somebody says something will ruin you, assume they’re right, and if it still seems worth it know that’s just the price.
26. everything could be done better than it is now. every category is imperfect, every process is suboptimal, every important person is disregarding something. people will not listen to you when you come up with something better. choose your battles, but fight for something.
27. every regret I have pertains to how I have treated somebody else. many of these have been whilst drunk. I used to love chaos, to cultivate and gravitate towards it, but these days it tires me.
28. keep a diary. it’s great for nostalgia, introspection, and shopping lists.
29. people you look up to are lacking something that you have. you are a sum of what you love and your experiences, and that gives you a unique perspective. embrace it. be that person. define yourself.
30. life goes on. this is what hurts the most when you’re tired, but it is also my solace – you’re never done. there is no pause, no break, no freedom from the ceaseless barrage of time beyond what peace you can claw for yourself in a busy world; equally, it’s never too late to start as you mean to go on. you will always be in a position to walk towards what you really want, you can change your mind, make something new, leave anything you want behind. life goes on, no matter the mistake you made or the age you are or the magnitude of what is happening around you. life goes on.

(1) my apologies for its current state, it recently-ish came back to WordPress and has not yet been fixed because I’m not using it as much as I’d like to. at some point I will take a week off work and fix it, or pay somebody else to.

(2) the masses are not reading this, or any other, blog in the year of our lord 2k23. thank you to my friend’s mum and my old Latin teacher for pushing up my reading stats.

On This Topic: advice from

• Natalie Merchant
• Maria McKee
• Taylor Swift

More Seriously: advice from

• the kinds of great minds I look up to (mileage may vary – Hemingway, perhaps, is not a great life model)
• a semi-professional advice-giver on the internet
• … and Taylor Swift

To-Do:

• go with the flow this month – people are doing things unto me and around me and I’m just gonna be glad to be here.
• make a bucket list of things to do in my 30s. I like symmetry, so maybe 30 things? 3 per year?
• reply to the positive deluge of cards and messages I am sure I have received today…

Today’s Culture:

• there’s nothing like celebrating with good food and nice surroundings, so a massive thank you for coming to Draughts and London’s most eccentric cinema with me last week – it hasn’t happened yet as of writing, but I know who’s coming and I already know we had the best time!
• an article from thirty years ago about dressing your age… and a more recent one from Alexa Chung, who apparently feels the same way about moths as I do.
• why not give this playlist a spin? I didn’t make it for anyone’s benefit except my own, these are the songs that simply make my heart soar. Consider it incomplete, as life always is.