Losing Your Cool
4 minute read
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was once regarded as cool. It was quite a while back. Not exactly Bernard Shaw-in-nappies back (Shaw being born in Portobello; my territory) but 20 years ago when I first landed in Dublin. I was working as a Fashion Buyer and deemed to be on-trend. Us buyers were flying around the world on business class, sourcing all the cool stuff and living the fast 5-star lifestyle. And all this, before I was 25.
Today, it’s a different, stark story. I step outside my front door and the cold hard truth stares me in the face. I am over 40 and still live in Portobello. I am surrounded on all sides by all breeds of cool. They walk slowly but speak loudly. They have lots to say. Their modes of transport are skateboards. They are louche and spend large chunks of their day along the hotspots of the canal. My kids look at their pink neon hair as if they are otherworldly beings. I have no means to compete.
Morning, around 8 am – the school run – is the best time for me. My tribe is out of bed.
None of the hipsters have risen yet. I have a loyal set of neighbours – all over 40. We stick together for moral support. We still think we are cool, but we are not. Nobody will admit it. We are ardent in our determination to resist suburbia and resolutely remain loyal to the Portobello scene that seduced us when we too were once very busy being hip. We are clinging to the notion of what once was.
Unlike the bright young things, life’s toil is etched in the lines of our 40-year-old faces. The Celtic Tiger swallowed us up and spat us out unceremoniously. We navigated marriage, bought and sold houses, gave birth, divorced, lost jobs, lost friends on their cancer journeys, struggled with ageing parents and shocking suicides; the story of our lives in all its gory glory.
Around lunchtime is when the cracks appear in our veneer. I go to collect the children. The groups of twenty-somethings are in situ outside the newest, achingly hip coffee shop, on benches, coffees in hand, and day-glow beanies on heads. By the time I walk past on my way home from school, wine glasses have replaced the reusable coffee cups. “But it’s only lunchtime!”, I think, as I crinkle my nose up in disbelief. The hip crew gives us blank stares as I give my children their fourth safety briefing crossing the road. I am very uncool as I hear myself order them not to pick up shiny, empty nitrous oxide canisters, strewn along the curbs, dubbed ‘hippie crack’ for teenagers.
In my head, I can hear a judgment, mostly my own. I feel invisible to them. My mother warned me about this stage – becoming irrelevant. Is my time up? Should I ship up and move outta here, and leave them to it? You see, just like fashion, the city never stops, the constant hum, the noise; it is the thumping pulse of the future. City centre living is like riding a wave of blurry optimism. It carries you along so fast that you don’t realise decades have whizzed by before your eyes.
For now, though, I am not ready to give up on the hope that youth strives for. I want this for my kids in their everyday life. Yes, they skip past all sorts on their daily sojourns back and forth to their friends, exposed to homelessness, drug dealing, early morning hellos from familiar weather-beaten faces along the canal, swigging their first whiskey of the day. With this exposure though, comes education and resilience to the game of life in real-time.
Cool has come to mean something different as I get older. Cool is doing what you say, saying what you mean, and meaning what you say. It’s rarely found in the purchase of a designer handbag. Fashionable cool is fleeting and is such a damned, empty promise. Show up, be kind, don’t judge. Have empathy for where others are in their lives – it may not be your journey but it’s theirs. Give thanks for what you have - that’s my kinda cool now.
And what advice would I extend to my 19-year old self now? Buckle up and brace yourself. You’re in the spring tide of your life. What’s ahead can be crazy, will almost certainly fall apart, and is one hell of a rollercoaster ride. As I approach middle age, my memories of my youth are heightened – my first love, my first car, my first job. I realise I must embrace and accept where I am in my life. Right here, right now, today is the youngest – and the coolest – you will ever be.
Abbi Gilbourne, June 2021
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