One minute you are going about your business, and you know where you are with everything and then, suddenly, it’s as though all your cells have been through that hadron collider thing and you are a totally different person. For example, having been immune to the attraction of birds (and actually quite frightened of seagulls), mysteriously you’ve morphed into a birdwatcher….Is that a fluffy backed tit babbler? Is it a goldfinch? A chaffinch? A coal tit? Birds suddenly taken on profound emotional significance. Look at that robin… *Howls* Look at that magpie. *Screams*
Politics For Grown-Ups
Where did this newfound passion for politics come from? And the accompanying rage? You sign petitions. You ask where the marches are. You cry over the girls. You feel so frustrated that, after all this considerable time that you have been alive, there seems to be have been no real progress. AAAAARRRGGHHHH. The kids look like the angry ones from the outside but they have no idea of the fury that is coming for them because… JESUS GUYS. HOW HARD CAN IT BE???????? Maybe not to get it all right. But not to get it so relentlessly, viciously, spitefully, illegally wrong.
Dirt
And, along with the rage you are simultaneously you are also turning into a 1950s housewife who cares about dust. You now crawl around the house running a biodegradable wet wipe along the skirting boards – maybe this is why your back hurts.
Cooking
Actually we’d rather not. We’ve completed the cooking. We would be happy if we never cooked again. Ever. Roasting people a chicken used to be a love language. Now not so much… toast is fine.
The Painkiller Drawer
Not an old quality street tin with some high street ibuprofen it. No it’s like Damien Hirst’s pharmacy these days. A drawer full of way past their sell-by-date heavy hitters that maybe someone brought you back from Thailand. Some aged Voltarol. Half empty Iboprufen trays. Lemsip. Stuff from when you once had an operation. Stuff from when your best friend once had an operation. Because of the pains. But also because sometimes you just need to take a pill.
Chair Dancing
Speaking of pills, the revelation has crept up on you that sitting down dancing is almost as much fun as standing up dancing – with less risk of injury. And less potential for humiliation. If only your arms and some of your torso is involved you are potentially looking good….ish. It’s subjective. But you are feeling good and that is thing that matters. You could see this as depressing or you could turn it around in your head and decide that it’s rather freeing.
Rudeness…
Late-onset rudeness. Many of us have spent much of our lives, thus far, obsessed with politeness, thank you cards, and being acceptable. Suddenly we care less. We aspire to be Miriam Margolis who, recently, on the Today Programme said, ‘Fuck you bastards’. Quite good for 80. Goals.
