I am definitely growing old but when will I grow up? | Matt Mohan-Hickson

I have no idea when it happened but I have grown to loathe that day over the last decade.

It is nothing to do with the number of my age slowly ticking up like the dial on a speedometer.

In fact I can’t wait until I am extremely old and can yell at young people and cut in queues at the supermarket with no worries about other shoppers complaining.

No, the reason that I hate September 29 is because it is cursed.

For the last five years at least it has been a day that brings nothing but disappointment.

I have been struck down with illness multiple times and friends cancelling plans to celebrate it at the last moment are just a few examples of things that have gone wrong on birthdays gone by.

Also for me at least, the lead up to my birthday puts me in a pensive mood and forces me to reflect on how the last 12 months turned out.

Did I tick off any of the goals on my list for the year? Will I have any memories to hold on to?

Fortunately my 26th year on this planet has a convenient asterisk next to it, given the obvious, so I’ve managed to avoid this annual tradition of wallowing on the whole.

But I have found myself circling this question: when will I actually become a grown up?

Is there a ceremony? Do you get presented with a medal or a certificate? If you tick off enough milestones do you get invited to a secret graduation ceremony?

Or is it a feeling of transformation? Will my power level increase and my hair change colour, like going ‘super saiyan’?

I am about to turn 27 but I don’t feel like I am a real adult. I feel like an impostor, like a child wearing his dad’s suit.

I look around at my friends and they are all settling down, getting mortgages and sharing pictures of their new house keys on social media.

While I am making Dragonball Z references in a column and debating which Pokémon I would be with my housemates, for the umpteenth time.

Maybe this is what being a grown up actually feels like? Or am I just a lost boy stuck in Neverland?​​​​​​​

A winter lockdown is going to be a difficult one to bear

I have been experiencing a heavy dose of déjà vu over the last week. It feels like we’ve all been transported back to the start of March, watching the tidal wave that is the pandemic approaching in the distance.

Except we’ve already been through it once and we know what to expect.

So I have been slowly accepting the feeling that it is an inevitability that we will be in some form of lockdown again in the coming weeks.

Accepting that inevitability might make it easier to stomach, although I fear that being trapped inside as the weather turns will be an extra kick in the teeth.

At least in lockdown one the sun was shining and that made things slightly more bearable.

Millennials are not the ones who made this Covid-19 mess

I am a millennial, so by this point in my life I am more than used to being the ones who get blamed for everything.

It has been endless articles bemoaning how my generation is ruining society.

So it’s not surprising that the blame gun has taken aim at the easy targets once again.

If we are to make it to the other side of this pandemic we need to stick together not turn on each other.

The only people who should be taking blame for the fresh rise in coronavirus cases is Boris Johnson and his shambolic government.

So if you are feeling upset about the latest restrictions, please don’t blithely blame my generation. Point your finger at Boris and remember it at the ballot box.