Around 2021, some friends and I started (half) joking about being in our flop eras. “The flop is hardest before the slay,” we’d remind each other in the group chat regularly, as each navigated the various setbacks that can come with adult life: break-ups, money woes, career dissatisfaction, general existential crises, etc. At one point, I broke out so spectacularly that I had to wear one of those detachable knitted hoods for about two weeks, and basically didn’t go outside. “Whatever is the opposite of a glow up, that’s what I’m going through,” I remember telling the only friend I allowed inside my house during this period. “It’s called a flop era,” she said solemnly, a lemon and ginger tea cooling between her hands.
But the thing is, it’s been a couple of years now, and my flop era doesn’t seem to have subsided. My skin never did return to its dewy, pre-pandemic glory (I looked like a baby in the summer of ’19), and my bank balance still gives me a hollow feeling in my chest. Now out of my 20s, I also can’t shake the feeling that the clay is somewhat dry. I am no longer the plucky 22-year-old with her first editor job, nor the enthusiastic party girl who can stay up until 4am before making a 10am meeting the next day. When I take selfies, which I don’t do very often, I’m struck by how exhausted I look sometimes, as if I haven’t had enough sleep, even though I sleep well most nights. What was once a flop era has since settled into a flop life. The slay is still pending.
That said, despite sounding a bit sorry for myself, I’ve also never felt more satisfied or comfortable in my own skin than I do currently. During those long-ago times in which I probably looked to an outsider as if I were doing well, I was often stressed, unsure, and swimming in self-doubt. I may have had a comfortable salary in my mid-20s, but I was also living off adrenaline and cigarettes and didn’t know how to speak my mind. There were things I didn’t like about myself then, too: the shape of my open mouth when I laughed, the way my shoulders drooped. How I clammed up in front of big groups. Now, I can’t believe those things used to bother me. It’s as if at some point this list of flaws began to bore me, and I genuinely couldn’t be bothered to dwell on them anymore. Which begs the question: is a flop era really a flop era if you don’t care about flopping?
None of which is to say that I have fantastic self-esteem and never feel shit about myself. Just yesterday I nearly cried at the gym because not enough people had messaged to wish me “happy birthday”, even though I’m not a child. I still wince at candid photos sometimes, especially the ones where my eyes are half-closed, or my ears stick out, or my face looks puffier than I thought it was. And I regularly wish I made more money so that I could put a deposit down on a house or even think about having a kid. But these feelings are fleeting, and they don’t cut deep, like waking up from a nightmare in which something awful happened, but by the time you drink your first coffee you can’t recall the details.
The phrase “flop era” implies that we have peaks and troughs throughout our lives, which is obviously true, to a point. Sometimes we are riding high, our skin glistening and taut, our love lives exciting, our careers taking the upward trajectory they’re supposed to. Other times, we get made redundant, or have to move back in with our parents, or get dumped after yet another three-month situationship. Life ebbs and flows in that way because so much happens, all of the time, and it would be impossible for everything to continuously go in our favour. But I also think that what looks like a flop era isn’t a flop era if it doesn’t feel that way. Moving back in with your parents, for example, isn’t a flop if it feels right and if that makes sense for you.
I also think that, more often than not, when people think we look our best is when we’re feeling our worst, and vice versa. People will compliment you on how great you look when you haven’t been taking care of yourself, or when you’re so sad that you’ve lost your appetite. Or they’ll comment on someone “letting herself go” because she is suddenly happy in her own skin and doesn’t bother with make-up or dieting. People gain weight when they go on SSRIs and are no longer unwell. Or they get older, because everyone does, even the young people. Or they realise they no longer want to work in a high-stress, well-paid job that eats into their free time and makes them miserable. What looks like a flop is, I think, so often the opposite. It sounds so obvious to say that it’s almost cliche, but external markers just aren’t an accurate barometer of happiness or success, even though they’re often the only barometer we refer to.
If I’m in my flop era, I’m kind of enjoying it. Not always, but most of the time. Just this morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and realised I hadn’t plucked my eyebrows in, I’m sorry to say, about six months. I’m getting faint laughter lines around my eyes, and I haven’t been to the gym in a couple of weeks because I’ve had Covid. I’m currently wearing sweatpants because my washing machine’s broken, and I’m on my last round of items. I haven’t been paid in however long, and I’m starting to worry about Christmas. But I also woke up and the sky looked frosty and bright blue and beautiful. And I breathed in the nutty scent of my coffee. And I stretched my arms up, ready. And I felt okay about all of it.
