So there we were last week about an hour before playing Manchester United,arguably the biggest club in the world and what were we discussing?
Team formation? No
Prospects for the Wolves V Utd ? Nada
Potential new manager at our club? Nein
None of the above,what we were discussing was Personal tax,corporate tax and pension plans...That's when it hit me...My God we're now officially old!
But is that so bad? Well yes and no...Yes, because of the bleeding obvious.Namely no longer being a snake hipped thrusting young hipster going home with beautiful sexy young women every night----Of course i am seeing this from a male perspective and there's a strong possibility i may be wearing very rose tinted glasses when recalling the past----No,because,hell we're not dead...
Don't get me wrong i'm not having a moan--well i am but in a good way---I am honoured and proud to share my Wolves days with such likable and interesting people.It's good that we can discuss things other than football football cricket football cricket football and football.Oh and football...
Plus i am not saying younger folk are vacuous and feckless,far from it.But it's all about terms of reference.Us young middle aged---still clinging on for dear life y'see---Will generally scour the listings to see if there's a good play on radio 4 or if Stuart Marconi has a radio 6 show on than listen to radio 1--I can't remember the last time i had radio 1 on,Is Anne Nightingale still doing her stuff ?---Ask me to name one tune in the current top 20? don't have a Scooby Do...
I live in one of the trendiest parts of the country---At the moment that is,one day the young Turks who unilaterally decide such things will no doubt bugger off to make somewhere else the "in" place and leave my area to revert back to seedy "Gentlemens" clubs and low life gangsters---But i don't feel part of the scene,despite living in the centre of it.I can think of nothing worse than clubbing till 8am every other night.However were i in my twenties i could think of nothing better... However i don't want to be the sad old fuck trying to pick up twenty year olds in a Hoxton club---after all what ever would we talk about?---.These days i get a thrill staying in the pub till midnight...
As you get older it's surprising how much a "Twinge" play in your daily life.Feel a twinge and that's it,you don't think "Oh it's nothing to worry about" as your younger self would,no,you envisage the worst case scenario from Terminal Cancer to the Ebola virus.Oh and you start using wanky terms like "Worst case scenario..."
When i was younger the last thing on my mind were pensions,that's probably true today too.But as i hurtled towards my forties it started appearing on my radar.Then of course i had a retirement date,much like an old lag has a release date from prison.But these days we don't even have a date anymore.It looks like our generation,and upcoming ones too, will be working till we drop.We're in a flux,completely and utterly fluxed if you like...
I know this sounds like a Canute type blog on the ageing process but it's not at all,i'm not jealous of the young today,it's a wasted emotion.Like Canute,nobody can stop time and the young of today will one day be my age and older and no doubt feeling wistful as i am now.Good luck with that...
Many people have no doubt wanted to live forever,be immortal.But why? If anyone gains immortality they won't be stuck forever in their twenty five year old body so they can enjoy it to the fullest.No,they'll be stuck in a body getting more and more decrepit,unable to do anything but stay alive.Do any of us really want someone else wiping our arse forever? Don't think so...
So as my hair goes grey and begins to sprout from places i'd care not to mention,my paunch shows no sign of reverting back to the beer barrels it came from and i browse the small print of my pension plan i curse getting older...
But it's still a damn sight better than the alternative...Well C'est la Vie.
1 comment:
Good post. My Dad worked hard all his life. Harder than most can imagine and few could manage. He was like one of the Pioneers. He busted a gut all his life and had zero tolerance of weakness. Life for him as a decrepit old man with some poorly paid bad tempered help doing his bits for him would have destroyed his soul. Thankfully a couple of years ago he died suddenly 5k's into a 130k cycle race of a massive heart attack at the age of 70. Doing what he loved most surrounded by his mates. He was as fit as a fiddle right up until he dropped down dead. Thats the way to go.
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