OSS

There are some parts of your personality that you outgrow. Then there are other parts that the universe keeps reaffirming. For me it is the simple, eternal truth that I am not cool.

Let me come clean about my heinous crimes against my youth: I was the biggest geek in high school. Unlike the cool girls, I made sure that my school pinafore was no shorter than the required 4 fingers width above my knee. I wore my hair slicked back in the neatest pony tail ever. My teachers loved me and I loved them. And sin of all sins, I actually enjoyed school. Loved it, to be honest.

My social life also speaks volumes about the absence of the cool factor in my genes. It is a rare privilege to see me drunk, and I’ve never smoked so much as a cigarette in my life; not because of a moral objection, but because I'm not a fan of eau de ashtray.

I’m not awfully fond of the club scene, and much prefer an evening at home with my best friends and a bottle of wine. When I do go out at night, it will most likely be for dinner at a nice restaurant or to the cinema.

In my spare time I enjoy the geriatric delicacies of poetry, trivia games, foreign films and classical music. Right now my car’s radio is actually tuned to Fine Music Radio - not a popular choice among my generation, but I love it.

So you see, not cool. Not even a little bit.

As a teenager and student, I was quite content with myself for the most part, but ever so often I would make a truly pathetic attempt to be cool. I could go into details, but then I would lose the last glimmer of street cred I might have left. Let’s just say that one day I finally admitted defeat and accepted the fact that I am an old soul.

Unfortunately, Old Soul Syndrome is completely incurable, and all you can do is learn to live with it. Thankfully, OSS is pretty easy to live with once you embrace it. The biggest mental hurdle to get over is confusing OSS with actually being old. People who do not understand OSS can be very insensitive and see it as a symptom of someone “being old before her time”. 

The truth is we old souls have as youthful an enthusiasm for life as any other young person. We just have different ways of enjoying the lives that have been given to us. When talking to our friends, we don’t want to yell over ear-melting music. When dancing, we’d much rather dance around in our living rooms to a song we chose, than to rub up against a sweaty stranger in a club. We like our wine, and we even like having too much of it upon occasion, but only among good friends who will put us to bed, and certainly not when we need to drive somewhere. We like the same popular music, books and films as other young people, but we refuse to give up Bach, Eliot and musicals simply because it’s not cool.

No, old souls are not withered souls. Cautious? Maybe. Conservative? I guess from a certain point of view. But old? Never. I would even venture a guess that you’ll find more optimism, passion and joie de vivre in the heart of an old soul than in most.

Then there’s another hurdle for old souls to overcome: the “supposed to” hurdle. I remember lying in my bed at university res, listening to the other girls coming back in at 3am. After shouting at them through the window to be quiet, I would lie awake until dawn, wondering...am I not supposed to be out until 3am, too? Is that not what 20 year olds are supposed to want to do? Should I not also care more about makeup and clothes, and should I not also want to drink and smoke and experiment? Is that not what you’re supposed to do in your 20’s?

Then, one night, I suddenly realised: there is absolutely nothing in this life that I have to do, except to be happy and bring happiness to others.

A fundamental change happened. No, I didn’t become the cool kid who didn’t care what anyone else thought of her. Let’s face it. We all care a little about what others think. What changed was my perception of what it was to be young and to “have a life”. Youth simply means opportunity, and belongs to those who grab it. And having a life simply means having joy and gratitude.

As for that little word, “cool”, what does it mean anyway? Who decides, and frankly, who the hell cares?

Not me. Not anymore. I like being an old soul. It might not be cool, but it feels great.