Old as the person you feel...or something...

I'm 35 in three weeks.

S'funny cos I don't feel 35. And the person I'm feeling ain't 35 either. I read somewhere years ago of a pop star who attained the age 35 and said he was now, officially 'middle-aged'

I don't feel that either.

As you grow older you think of life as something like:

Baby - don't know anything
Child - knows a bit, but uses the fact that adults think that s/he's only a child and wouldn't know (like heck)
Teenager - Knows it all
Young adult - Its scary out here when there's so much I should know and nothing I learnt at school helps
Middleaged - Well its too late now to know anything, I ask my mum/dad to fill in the gaps. Or my colleagues. Or my 5 year old son
Grey - A few brain cells have dropped out, but I know more than they think

I won't say how old my better half is, I'll just say he's a bit older than me. He started to go backwards on the list when he hit middleaged and is hovering between 'young adult' and 'child' (Teenagers scare him, so he's skipped that generation). Its great cos he makes me feel young and I don't think I've aged a year since I first met him, aged 16.

I'm sure someone said to me years ago that you've been middleaged since you were about 5. Actually, I think this is probably true of a lot of girls, they take life soooo seriously sometimes. Crack a joke about their crow's feet ("hey, you could always make a feature out of them with papier mache") and they look at you as if you've just burnt their house down.

My hair is starting to grey, but its been doing that since my late teens, I have a stressful job. I'm getting a few wrinkles but if people can't take me wrinkles and all, and not see the person I am inside (friendly but sometimes volatile) then they can go and find other friends. Or enemies.

I'm gonna carry on believing that I'm 17 with the mind of a 35 year old. Or maybe the body of a 35 year old with the mind of the girl of 17.

That's better.

Pass the happy pills please, no the orange ones...

I've realised that glancing over my page of posts that I've been doom, gloom and depression for too long and that ain't in keeping with a blog that was meant to be humourous.

Still, I've heard tell that writers do best with stuff that's on their heart don't they? So I've bared my soul to a PC and maybe 6 people on the net (on a good day) and do I feel any better?

Do I heck. I lose myself in my work and my love life and I am, for the most part, extremely content with my lot. Or should that be little?

The way people are nowadays reminds me of that reggae-pop-hit-that-wasn't-a-pop-hit-but-everyone-thinks-should-have-darn-well-been-a-pop-hit "Radio Africa". You must know the one "I'm hearing only bad news (on Radio Africa)". Seems like I hear bad news on not just Radio Africa, but Radio USA, Radio Europe, Radio Australia, suicide rates are up, the environment cart is going to hell and we're strapped to the rear axle.

There's great uncertainty at my workplace as well and morale is down, and I think that's true of most workforces.

Don't Worry, Be Happy a great philosopher once sang.

No - I'm not going to forget about the world's troubles and I'm not going to bury my head in the sand in the hope that it will all go away. However, I know that as just one person in the huge computer that is the world - I ain't gonna make a whole lotta difference to the geology, the economy, the ecology, whatever.

BUT - you can make a big difference in at least ONE person's life today and you don't have to raise a finger. No...

SMILE! The sunshine will follow you around wherever you go.

Outta the frying pan

Unless you've been living in the jungle with just a coupla tigers and a shamen whose English is limited to the word 'Coca-Cola', then you'll know that London is under attack.

Bar all conspiracy theories that seems to go with all terrorist bombings, its really strange that I somehow feel more uneasy now, living 250+ miles away than I did when I only lived around 20 miles away. Then, during the IRA's forays, I felt completely disconnected with what was going on in central London.

The one exception was when I was working for a bakery in Twickenham doing payroll for the shops in London and the burbs. There was a shop nearby the NatWest tower, which wasn't normally open on a Saturday, but because the shops outside London were short on bakers due to sickness and holiday, two bakers agreed to come in and do what is commonly called a 'bake off' - baking sausage rolls and bread for the Middlesex and Surrey shops. Two other people, the shop manageress and the area manager, again, who would not normally work on that day, decided to go in and catch up on some paperwork. Before they started, they decided to go to a local cafe and have a cup of tea first.

A little while later, with the bakers still baking and the managers still in the cafe, someone tried to blow up the NatWest tower. The proximity of the bomb meant that the shop window blew inwards, showering the bakers in glass and rendering them incapable of work for a week or three due to shock.

When you pay them, you feel closer to them somehow. I think now, the reason why I feel somehow connected, is my sudden decision to wrench myself away from the place. The umbilical cord is still connected, and why shouldn't it be? Also, I have colleagues in several offices in London, and a colleague here in Wales has a daughter in London, and I feel her concern, particularly as I'm a serial worrier.

God bless every single Londoner today. Travel safe.

Homesick

Last Friday night, don't know what caused it, but I started to feel the first signs of homesickness.

I was thinking of the places that I will probably never see again, of the River Thames in particular, especially Twickenham riverside. A part of me, and ghosts of memories haunt areas of my soul and come creeping up during dark nights and tears spring to my eyes with thoughts of what was, and what could have been. I shared a lot of my fears and hopes with that river and my echo is there still. Discussing this with the better half, he told me that if we ever went back, it would be different, even if nothing has changed.

He's so right.

My memories, happy, happy-sad and bitter-sweet memories of the places that I knew in my childhood and early adult years will remain just memories. I cannot relive them and I cannot bring them back. Usually, I had no-one to share those thoughts and feelings with after walking away from the places that I frequented then. I do now - and we have both torn ourselves away from places that we grew up in and have started life afresh in a place that has such outstanding natural beauty, that we can build new memories to share.

We have just had the best weekend since first moving up. We didn't visit anywhere beautiful, but we have started to get our lives together as the house that we chose to live in, in small ways is becoming a home.

Here's to the next 30 years of building homes and memories.

Ghosts

Read this thought provoking post from a favourite blog of mine. It certainly made me wonder...are memories, ghosts?

Some are painful, some are heartwarming, some you would rather forget, some you never want to fade. And yet, face them we must and often they taint our perception of situations past - we either improve or play down the ultimate result, depending upon how we want to be remembered when retelling our memories to others.

I have my own theory regarding actual ghosts - and they don't have white sheets and chains (well, not always). But that's for another time.

Memories are ghosts that inhabit our mind and make us what we are.