‘Are you?’ I ask, chuckling softly at his mock-therapist voice.
‘Ask your brother. I’ve helped him through a couple of things before,’ he says. ‘So, go on, what’s the issue? Uncle Monts’ ears are open.’
I shrug it off and wait for him to get bored, drop it and move on, but he continues patiently waiting. He may not be Anton’s biological brother, but he sure has the same annoying willingness to wait for my confessions.
‘I’m just getting closer to thirty and stressed about where my life’s headed. You wouldn’t understand,’ I say.
No one would in this place because they don’t know how lucky they are. Uni was the last place where I still felt like my future had hope. So, to share all of this with some ACS member who’s still in such a malleable stage of his life is pointless.
‘Actually, I would understand more than you think.’ He leans back on the sofa and looks me in the eye. ‘I’m twenty-nine.’
‘What?’
I hate the tone of it the second the word comes out of my mouth. Luckily, he laughs off my shock.
‘Yeah, I get that a lot,’ he chuckles.
‘So, you’re what? Doing your masters? PhD?’ I ask.
‘Undergrad. Second year, like your brother.’
I clench my jaw tight to avoid any more reactions I’ll regret. He takes my silence for the question that it is and takes a relaxed sip of his drink before continuing.
‘I didn’t want to study anything when I left school. Went straight into a job as a plumber. Seven years into that, after some pretty big life events, I decided I wanted to be a psychologist. Turns out, that requires a degree and a whole lot of training. So, here I am, three years later.’
‘So, you started at twenty-seven,’ I say, doing the sums in my head.
‘Yep, and will hopefully start my doctorate by the time I’m thirty-two. But who knows about that yet.’ He shrugs.
‘That doesn’t scare you? Starting over so. . .’
‘Old?’ he asks, laughing at my embarrassed face. ‘Twenty-nine is nothing. Thirty is nothing. If I wanted to start again at fifty, I would. Time is just that– time. It dictates too much of our lives already for us to start letting it dictate what we can and can’t accomplish.’
‘But how do you stop it from dictating everything?’ I ask, staring at him intensely.
I can’t help it– the booze has seeped into my system and I’m suddenly desperate to hear his advice. He pauses to look up at the ceiling, arranging the words in his own head before imparting them to me.
‘You gotta get to the root of your issues. Figure outwhyit’s so important for you to reach your dream life by a certain age. It’s your dream life, not your dream thirtieth year; you literally have your whole life to go through the motions and figure things out.’
I don’t know if it’s the drink or the music or the long sentences, but his advice leaves me more confused than where I left off. He can instantly tell as he looks down at my face, my lips parted and eyes wide as I stare back dumbfounded.
‘OK, let’s try something else,’ he says, shifting his stance so he can stare at me head on. ‘Speed round– no thinking, just answer straight up. What are your biggest goals for thirty?’
‘House, promotion and fiancé,’ I say, the alcohol drawing them out of me with ease.
‘And what happens if you don’t achieve them by then?’
‘I fail,’ I say, obviously.
‘Fail what?’ he asks.
‘Life.’
‘Why?’
‘Because . . .’
But I don’t know, I don’t have an answer. I haven’t thought past that point, or even about what that point looks like if I don’t succeed. When I think about it now, I guess I’d still just be me. Still lost and behind, trying to reach the goals I set out for myself.
