Change

They say that people change every 7 years, don't they?

And I'm not talking about going sober or starting to go to the gym. I mean change change. I'm talking your cells' regeneration rate. Every 7-10 years apparently. By the time 7 years have passed, the cells that used to make up you have all died out, and new ones have risen to replace them. A cell-level coup d'etat of the person you once were, by the person you are now forced to be.

I don't know where I heard that from, and I don't have the scientific know-how to verify any of it. Could be an 'old-wives tale', as they say (still not entirely sure if that term is sexist... It probably is.)

If that's true, the person writing this is currently looking at a picture of a different person. Two different people actually. One of them is wearing a blue shirt that still hangs in my wardrobe, that absolutely wouldn't fit me. The other one is leaning on his shoulder. She has brown hair in this one. She didn't always have brown hair. Her eyes are blue, though. They were always that blue.

They're at the zoo. I don't remember the zoo, really. I only know it because below the photo is a video of the girl watching a penguin waddle up to her, tilting its head curiously through the perspex. She looks back at the camera and giggles to herself, and sways in rhythm to the penguin's gait. She absolutely loved animals, as did the me that was filming, but what I loved more was watching her loving animals.

I didn't look for this photo. To be honest, I'd rather not have seen it. My phone interrupted me in the petulant way it always does, and asked me if I'd like to peer 7 years ago into the past at two people who don't know me, and who now don't know each other. I was invited to see two people who were at the time so comfortable in who they were with each other, and yet, so unable to take control of the ways in which they would both change.

One day, I'd like to be able to look at that photo and see someone so entirely different, that I might smile and laugh perhaps at how blissfully naive I was. Perhaps she might sit and laugh with me. But I've locked my phone now. Despite our cells having entirely erased themselves, the resemblance is still uncanny. He still looks far too much like me, and she looks, unfortunately, beautifully, like her.

Sam O'Hanlon - 23rd March 2025, London