Millennial Agony Aunt: Week 15

Emily Watkins is a professional Millennial (read: precariously employed twenty-something). Each week, she answers three generation-specific queries from the depths of her on-brand existential crisis.

For the fifteenth instalment of Millennial Agony Aunt, Emily consoles the agonised over letting go of possessions from the past, how to give that pal with the new TikTok profile a tasteful ticking off, and where to start when picking up new hobbies in your late twenties.

Please send any quandaries, issues, troubles or thoughts to aunt@whynow.co.uk for a good dose of aunt-ing.

I need to do a clearout of my childhood bedroom because my parents are moving — but I’m feeling too sentimental! Everything I pick up to chuck out reminds me of something and I can’t bear to part with it. How do I get unstuck? What metric should I use to decide what to keep?

Prom Dress by Norman Rockwell

Hmm. I’m going to tell you things you already know up top, so bear with me. They’re worth repeating because they’re worth remembering.

The objects you’re sorting through feel important because the times they represent were formative. The category error, though, is conflating these things with the times they remind you of — as a young(ish) adult, it’s easy to feel a bit panicky about your recent(ish) childhood vanishing behind a hill, but throwing away your old soft toys or exercise books isn’t going to change the fact that you’re no longer the kid who scrawled in them or clutched them close. 

Rule of thumb here, I’d suggest, is to try and look through your bits and pieces as though they belong to someone else. (That’ll be impossible to actually achieve, but hopefully the intent will swing you back to somewhere less ‘emotional wreck’ and more ‘fond observer’.) If you were sorting through the belongings of a dear friend, what would you choose for them? Hold that thought, and then ask what you’d choose if you could only fill a carrier bag?

That image might have you clutching your pearls—how will I fit Mr Nibbles and all my times tables books in a carrier bag? Exactly! Constraints like ‘one bag’ or ‘five objects’ will help you think rationally about the junk you’re dealing with; sorry, but ‘junk’ is going to be the right word, by and large, unless you were some kind of prodigy. I bet you haven’t even thought about the things in this room since you left home however many years ago. 

I bet you didn’t know what was in that desk drawer, did you, until you opened it and started howling about that week in Spain when we all had chickenpox on the sleeper train and mum got food poisoning from a dodgy chicken sandwich left out in the sun? Look, you remember it without that tatty napkin covered in noughts and crosses, drawn to wile away those endless hours on that hellish carriage. And it sounds dreadful anyway. Either put the napkin in the carrier bag or don’t, and move onto the next box.

My friend has started a TikTok account and it is… not very funny. Do I have a moral duty to stop her, or can I just smile-and-nod?

The Gossips by Norman Rockwell

Smile and nod, baby. Smile and nod.

I’m 28, and have always been sceptical of ‘hobbies’ in favour of just going to the pub/watching TV. The older I get, the less satisfying these options seem but I feel a bit embarrassed about picking up an interest out of the blue. Like, I can’t just start skateboarding, or take up guitar, can I? 

The Collector by Norman Rockwell

Hey! You totally can! That’s the short answer, but read on if you’d like to see my working. 

Someone much wiser than I (and resolutely anonymous, despite my best googling efforts) said that to be as happy as possible, a person should have three hobbies: one to make money, one to keep them in shape, and one as a creative outlet. To give this mysterious savant their due, that trio does cover much of what makes a human human, what makes a life not just worth living but self-sustaining too. What’s more, to apply this formula to your question, the ‘hobbies’ you’re eyeing up are actually very promising indeed: I’d say skateboarding ticks the ‘exercise’ box, and guitar is certainly creative. Some lucky people have made money from both – but I wouldn’t count on that. 

To be completely honest, I’m with you re ‘hobby’ phobia. Is that because I’ve spent my whole life with nothing to say when someone asks me if I have any? Is it because nobody talks about hobbies except for a GCSE French teacher in an Oral Exam? Yes and yes – but also because of the faux category that the word ‘hobby’ infers. Somehow, for me (and from the sounds of things, for you too) calling something a ‘hobby’ immediately renders it completely unpalatable. I do love films, actually – let’s definitely go see the new Sofia Coppola on Wednesday. But ‘film club’? I’d rather die. 

To veer back onto our piste: you absolutely can take up guitar or skateboarding as long as you’re not expecting either activity to transform your life. To enhance it, enrich it? Sure! As you’ve probably realised, I’m constitutionally resistant to the fit-rich-creative equation quoted above. It’s all a bit productive for my taste, when leisure time ought surely to feel anything but? Like, stop making me better myself and let me wallow in whatever muck I choose? Don’t we work hard enough without monetising or skill-ifying the dwindling freedom we retain between keeping professional and social lives, physical and domestic spheres, running smoothly? If anything ‘useful’ should result from my relaxing, let it be completely incidental and not even vaguely intentional? Anyway, that’s just me. 

If what you’re really asking is whether you’re too old to start a new phase, learn new tricks, find new sources of joy (if only because the old ones give you a hangover nowadays), I scream NO NO GOD NO, GO FOR IT. As for hobbies per se, I’ve personally felt too old for those since primary school – but there must be a reason that guitar and skating appeal, out of all the millions of hobbies at your fingertips. As such, I’d wager that they’re natural extensions of what’s always made you you. Resist the ‘hobby’ label in favour of the experience itself, and you’ll be set – just promise me you won’t take any exams or enter any competitions, ok? *Joke (not really)*.

Banner image is ‘Girl At Mirror’ by Norman Rockwell

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