i just turned 28 does anyone know why my back is hurting and also my knees are hurting and also-

it's a MONDAY Circle Back ! good for you you're reading on a Monday

Mar 25, 2025

TWENTY-EIGHT.

That’s how old I am now. Allegedly. That’s a real number! They’re all real numbers, but 28 is real. It’s closer to 30 than I’ve ever been.1 This is the late twenties. Bills are officially real, my back pain is stronger when I lie down in my bed, and the idea of getting knee replacements in the distant future is beginning to sound nice; student loans are still not real.

28 is being in my apartment and noticing that something could be cleaned or reorganized … all the time. It’s flossing every night before bed and watching a show like Madame Secretary — in this case, it’s The Diplomat. It’s having friends over for dinner and always worrying that one of the burners on the stove is turned on. It’s sneezing really loudly and having your face feel like a Tempurpedic (not sponsored) mattress that’s just been jumped on.

28 is SO young. It’s staying out late and buying $10 press-on nails to wear, even though you’re just answering emails on your computer.2 It’s still (sort of sometimes not really) being able to eat whatever you want. It’s old enough to get your own health insurance or be able to rent a car, but it’s young enough to not be able to run for president. It’s also young enough to still believe that you’d be a great president if you could run right now. 28 is young enough to still feel like you know better than everyone around you, even though that’s not true for anybody … except for Cher. Cher knows better.

TWENTY-EIGHT is being out of high school for 10 years. It’s paying your own phone bill, and it’s impulsively buying junk food at the bodega. You can eat whatever you want still, remember (this is not true)? It’s putting a picture of your mom on your fridge and learning how to keep your plants alive. It’s actually having to go to jury duty and eating a kiwi a day because it’s supposed to be good for your digestive health.

It’s old enough to go down Wikipedia spirals at least four times a day. It’s old enough to have a real daily planner and to put in a timeslot for going down Wikipedia spirals. It’s young enough to have the whole world ahead of you and old enough to know when a country is committing genocide and understanding that they’re in the wrong no matter what other side plots you wanna add to the story. It’s understanding that Judaism should not be weaponized to kill Palestinians in Gaza.

It’s young enough to be more online than you’d like but old enough to not know the slang of the youths, anymore. It’s loving Selena Gomez and then hating Selena Gomez and then … sort of, liking Selena Gomez again? 28 is finally pushing yourself to really start focusing on the career you’ve been imagining. I mean, if any of those executive orders our president has been throwing at the wall stick, we might as well follow our dreams????

This is 28. Take it from me because I’ve been 28 for less than a week, and I know better than anybody.

SEVERANCE SPOILER ALERT:

Wasn’t that CRAZY?

ANOTHER SEVERANCE SPOILER ALERT:

Yupppppp. Yup.

I will say nothing more. Let Patricia Arquette do it for you.

My friend,

ohwen

, who just released his own Substack called Melodramatic, has been posting TikToks of himself trying to see how long it takes to say the word “like” when he’s talking. I think he’ll be okay with me saying that the videos are quite short. But the other night, Owen, Brenna, and I were sitting in a PACKED bar at 1 am timing ourselves to see how long it took. It took us nine tries to not say it for one minute. Maybe that’s really the message behind turning 28. With that, I encourage you all to time yourselves when you’re having a conversation and see how long it takes to say the haunting word. If you can’t stop saying it, then I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t wait until our generation becomes president because we’re gonna be saying “like” in so many interviews and speeches. It’s gonna feel so much more real and fun and, like, cute. Being the president will be a cute thing to be when it’s our turn. I’m gonna be on a date with some guy and will ask him what he does, and he’ll say, “I’m, like, the President of the United States,” and then I’m gonna say, “Aw, that’s, like, sooo cute.” Well, hopefully, men aren’t president anymore by that time, but you get it. Also, why is the President on a date? Does he have time for that? Why isn’t he married? Wait, is he married? What is going onnnnnn

Thanks for reading Circle Back this week. If you need a reason to read it next week, just take a look at what my Co — Star is telling you to do: