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And so it begins again

It’s like those ‘seven ages of man’ gags, first documented by Shakespeare in ‘As You Like It’: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, and second childhood.

Except, as many of my friends would know, I have never fully left my first childhood. It clings to the hem of my coat, like a small child in a crowded supermarket, desperate not to get lost in the undercurrent of history that swirls around us.

See?

I still have it!

I can still write shit.

No, I don’t mean that my writing *is* shit, I mean that I can still write *shit*.

So no confusion there then!

Marvellous.

But the point I was aiming at, and missed by a glorious country mile, is that once upon a time birthdays were important things.

I used them to document the passing of time as I grew older; gradually crept towards one or other calendar-based milestones, that slowly edged their way down the line towards me.

Sixteen: being ‘legally allowed to do it’, whatever ‘doing it’ meant, because I certainly didn’t know!

Eighteen: being able to vote, because me putting an ‘X’ on a scrap of paper every few years has had such a profound effect on the outcomes of our flawed electoral system. Not.

Twenty-one: getting ‘the key to the door’, another entirely useless anachronistic phrase that belongs in the Natural History museum, along with all the other dinosaurs.

And then they stopped being events that mattered; all of the future benchmarks had been reached.

When one creeps past ‘the big four oh’, the only thing left on the calendar is retirement – and that is now bucking the temporal trend by moving further away!

So I put myself in a position where looking forward stopped being important, and looking backwards took on new meaning.

Not, I add quickly, in a ‘backwards longing’ kind of way. I meant more of a ‘things that I’ve achieved that I can feel good about’, kind of way.

Because it is *that* thought that takes me forward with a new set of things on my ‘to do’ list.

‘What can I do better, smarter; where can I add most value’, these are my new goals for the coming year.

These are the things that are more important to me now, not rushing around like a rabid lemon, trying to tick as many boxes as possible.

I have my hit list for the next 12 months and, scarily, it’s a very long list.

Sometimes gaining perspective is not helpful; it’s as if the more I learn, the amount I haven’t yet learned becomes highlighted.

And that’s the really scary stuff about having a birthday.

11 thoughts on “And so it begins again”

  1. So you are strawberry years old now then? I was going to count them but there were so many and I didn’t think it was that important anyway.

  4. See, skeptic that I am (I *nearly* wrote septic), I saw the reminder on Facebook that it was your birthday and I thought “no Ian, he probably gave them false details, don’t fall for it”…how wrong can you be.

    So anyway, happy birthday you Welsh-speaking wonderboy. In dog years you’d be long gone by now although in tortoise years you’re still in the first flush of your youth with all the uncontrollable erections that brings. Enjoy. 😉

  7. Hang on a cotton pickin minute….. are you alluding to the fact that it is your birthday? Well if you are, Happy Bloody Birthday!

    If this makes you feel any better, 60 is supposed to be the new ‘middle age’. Not that I am saying you are sixty or anything.

  8. Happy birthday Brennig! And good on your for setting goals and having a hit list. You’ve got a great life anyway, you’ve got Sophie, you’ve got horses, you live in a nice place and you don’t have the shitty daily commute into some hell hole office to do a job you loathe. Sounds to me like you’ve achieved what I want to achieve.

  9. You think all that on your birthday? I just think, ‘Oh, I can eat cake and drink booze. I best get some nice presents…’

    I’m very grown up, really.

  11. Thanks all. 🙂

    Just for the record, the normal bit of the day was as busy as hell, but it started with breakfast in bed, and ended with much loveliness at home in the evening.

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