Isn’t it funny how you picture yourself a certain age? When you imagine doing something new, when you reminisce, when you think about the future. In all these scenarios I am the same age. Stuck and static. Do you find this? I look in the mirror and I see all the lines and the dark circles, all the just plain weird parts and frankly mostly wrecked bits. But then behind my eyes there is still a wee twinkle, a faint glimmer of my younger self. Like another life. I think I stopped ageing in my head somewhere around 28 years old. I had got married by then to the love of my life and perhaps it made my mind just stop still. Both in revelry and in shock.
This has meant that everything that has come after this event, and I am talking about the big stuff like buying a house and having a baby, have felt like very ‘adult’ things to do. But also when I sometimes catch myself looking at furniture catalogues and I shudder at how like my parents I am, or when I discuss insurance or something else to do with taxes, or even the price of chicken. And when I gaze at my three children and think how in the hell am I responsible for those things? I can’t be nearly 40 for goodness sake. That ain’t me. Pah.
Well, now I have really gone and done something very grown up. I guess I have to accept the inevitability of the fact that I am not a young whipper snapper anymore. Although the scale of hangovers have been hinting at it for a good 5 years, I must come to terms with the truth that I am not hip or cool and really just a bit old in nearly all the ways you can be. But I do occasionally know what I am talking about. So I have gone and started my own business venture. A fitness one at that. With the aim of helping people live healthier and hopefully better lives. Yay me. It’s pretty big on my little planet but in the grand scheme of the universe I’m not saving the world, just trying to help a few friends and neighbours at a time. I’m hoping to sustain my self-worth and financial needs at once, whilst keeping myself healthy and working around my kids. Lucky, lucky me. So here’s to that grown up adventure and facing up to age and responsibility and all that malarkey.
But now I really need to counterbalance this mid-life madness. I don’t really want to think about how this will affect my tax return. I’m not ready yet! I am doing scary stuff and not feeding that late 20-year-old hedonistic imagination at all. In fact, the 20 something would positively projectile vomited on my sober and serious self. So here comes the crisis and I shall revert to childhood for a moment. Well maybe I should say to teenhood. And only for a minute. I need a bit of a nostalgia trip.
I was reflecting on what I excelled at, if there was anything, when I was at school after my daughter’s parent’s evening. Those days were such a blur of boys and bitching and cars and crying, it’s really hard to recall any substance. By the time I got to secondary school my maths skills which blossomed when I was little had all but faded. I got in such a pickle. Numbers can put me into a right spin. So much as say the words “what’s the percentage of” and watch me flail my arms like Steve Martin. I have a recollection of making test tubes explode in Chemistry, arguing with my Biology teacher in genetics about the existence of Divinity and accidentally dropping magnets into iron filings in Physics. I was the average kid at nearly everything. But there were a few little flickers of half brilliance here and there. Like sunlight peeping through the walls of a dusty wooden shack.
Art. Drama. English Literature. I was alright at those most of the time. Scraped a decent grade and more importantly, risked my parents wrath by pouring all my energies in to them and not much else. But was I any good? Can you be truly talented at that age? Who knows. But I was extremely proud of the few A grades I received for those fortes. They were probably the best marks I ever accomplished for anything, ever.
It’s sad you never get a grade when you’re a grown up. Not a positive one anyway. I’d quite like a gold star every now and then. In fact, maybe I’ll aspire for gold stars from my business. From people I work with, family and friends who support me and even, dare I say it, from myself. We do not pat ourselves on the back enough. But to satisfy the whipper snapper I have booked me into an oil painting class which commences in the new year and I cannot wait. So that’s (almost) two down. Boom. Bring on 2018. Now, where did I put my paintbrushes and my pile of self-help books?
40 for 40 