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| Goodbye my friend, Peaches Geldof – you were too young to die | Goodbye my friend, Peaches Geldof – you were too young to die |
| (12 days later) | |
| My friends are dying all around me. It started a few years ago when Joel, only 25 at the time, killed himself. Then last year Peter fell out of a window at a party. He was 28. In December, Jamie had an overdose, aged 23. This past week, Melissa lost her battle to cancer, which came fast and hard, before she was even 30. And now Peaches Geldof – celebrity wild child turned mother of the year, who was, to me, my partner in crime throughout the reckless years of my late teens and young 20s – is gone too, just turned 25. | |
| They were all too young to die, with myriad talents and passions that propelled them. They were musicians, photographers, painters, writers – and like me – brimming with big ideas, idle time, and pent up problems, which were mostly untreated and unheard. We were messy and manic, angry and ambitious, from different backgrounds, with vastly different circumstances, bound by a common desire to live fast in spite of everything. And so we did. It was a brilliant time. | They were all too young to die, with myriad talents and passions that propelled them. They were musicians, photographers, painters, writers – and like me – brimming with big ideas, idle time, and pent up problems, which were mostly untreated and unheard. We were messy and manic, angry and ambitious, from different backgrounds, with vastly different circumstances, bound by a common desire to live fast in spite of everything. And so we did. It was a brilliant time. |
| Much of the last decade of my life has been filled with vibrant people and endless parties. Not all of us were rich kids. In fact, most of us, myself included, were quite the opposite – from ordinary families with little money at our disposal. But it didn't matter where you came from or what you represented as long as you were interesting. When Peaches lived in a hotel in Mayfair, I was holed up in Southwark squat. That disparity was part of the beauty of coming of age in London and a testament to the equalising power of the city's culture of young creativity – it was eclectic, both feast and famine, privilege and poverty, mixed up and moving all around us. I owe a lot of the freedom I had at the time to squatting – and lament the young people like myself of generations to come who will not have access to the city like I did, and the people that I did; who will not be able to pursue their interests to the fullest as they're chased out by the impossible cost of living. | Much of the last decade of my life has been filled with vibrant people and endless parties. Not all of us were rich kids. In fact, most of us, myself included, were quite the opposite – from ordinary families with little money at our disposal. But it didn't matter where you came from or what you represented as long as you were interesting. When Peaches lived in a hotel in Mayfair, I was holed up in Southwark squat. That disparity was part of the beauty of coming of age in London and a testament to the equalising power of the city's culture of young creativity – it was eclectic, both feast and famine, privilege and poverty, mixed up and moving all around us. I owe a lot of the freedom I had at the time to squatting – and lament the young people like myself of generations to come who will not have access to the city like I did, and the people that I did; who will not be able to pursue their interests to the fullest as they're chased out by the impossible cost of living. |
| But as time pressed on, it seemed more evident to me that behind our revelry was a darkness deep inside. An aimlessness that made sacrifice of some of us and served as a warning to others. I started to ask myself: what are we doing and where are we going? Fate was this great force that brought us the new experiences for which we had longed, but fate was also flippant, rash – and could just as easily take it all away. | But as time pressed on, it seemed more evident to me that behind our revelry was a darkness deep inside. An aimlessness that made sacrifice of some of us and served as a warning to others. I started to ask myself: what are we doing and where are we going? Fate was this great force that brought us the new experiences for which we had longed, but fate was also flippant, rash – and could just as easily take it all away. |
| Like many of our peers, particularly those in close proximity to the spotlight, we were unapologetically selfish and self-absorbed. Our lives were riddled with bad decisions – be they plastered in the papers or still secrets. | Like many of our peers, particularly those in close proximity to the spotlight, we were unapologetically selfish and self-absorbed. Our lives were riddled with bad decisions – be they plastered in the papers or still secrets. |
| We grew older and got over that. Peaches got married and had two sons. I went back to school and got a job. Still, looking back, even though I often feel embarrassed at the kid I used to be, I can't help but feel terrified of this strange adult I am becoming. | We grew older and got over that. Peaches got married and had two sons. I went back to school and got a job. Still, looking back, even though I often feel embarrassed at the kid I used to be, I can't help but feel terrified of this strange adult I am becoming. |
| Our ability to move past the many mistakes we made and come out of it the better, makes it that much more bittersweet to now have to say goodbye. And as the list of friends to whom I have paid the same respect grows longer, I come to realise for the first time that just because you're young doesn't mean you'll live for ever. | Our ability to move past the many mistakes we made and come out of it the better, makes it that much more bittersweet to now have to say goodbye. And as the list of friends to whom I have paid the same respect grows longer, I come to realise for the first time that just because you're young doesn't mean you'll live for ever. |
| Is that what growing up is, I wonder? Not the job or the marriage – but learning that you're not invincible? If it is, it's a lesson I never thought I'd learn at this age so many times over, in such cruel and swift succession. | Is that what growing up is, I wonder? Not the job or the marriage – but learning that you're not invincible? If it is, it's a lesson I never thought I'd learn at this age so many times over, in such cruel and swift succession. |
| If you're out there, wild and alive with so much still to see and do, don't worry. The party marches on. The people are still lustrous. What's changed for me, however, is that I now know that some nights must end, and some people I will lose. Getting older means learning how to say goodbye – to grieve and to grow. | If you're out there, wild and alive with so much still to see and do, don't worry. The party marches on. The people are still lustrous. What's changed for me, however, is that I now know that some nights must end, and some people I will lose. Getting older means learning how to say goodbye – to grieve and to grow. |
| And so I do: goodbye to my friends now gone, whom I will remember fondly, for your complexities and gifts; and to my youth, wonderful and hideous, in all its darkness and its light. | And so I do: goodbye to my friends now gone, whom I will remember fondly, for your complexities and gifts; and to my youth, wonderful and hideous, in all its darkness and its light. |
| • This article was amended on 22 April 2014 to correct Jamie's age |
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