1st of January 2016 and I'm sitting here alone but for some cooking smells that are not mine emanating from the kitchen, that is. And I'm feeling bluer than a new pair of 1970s Levis, with the dye all ready to run out.
I've said before, somewhere else, that my life has turned into an exercise in simple arithmetic. I just turned 58. That's two more makes sixty. I can't possibly be sixty. It's terrifying. Like coming home from the store and discovering you've accidentally shoplifted a Tiffany necklace and it's only a matter of time before the CCTV exposes you. Not that I've been in Tiffany more than twice in my life and frankly, if I had shoplifted anything from there, it really would be an act of madness as I care nothing, less than nothing for the ridiculous crap they sell. I like the blue boxes though. A metaphor. I hate the crap, but like the packaging. But the thought of actually being me - at 60, such a foreign number, such a foreign place, is just beyond my comprehension. My bones, my poor aching, beaten, battered bones that ache from doing nothing more than being attached to my body, are less surprised and aghast at the idea than I am, but there it is, and the maths begin. How long do I have? ten years or so until I can retire in legal terms, though financially I should work till maybe two years before I die as then I'd have enough money to live till the last day. Unfortunately, in most cases, you don't get that sort of notice. Or fortunately, even, as who'd really want to know. If I move this year into another house, I have maybe ten years before I need to think of moving again, downsizing to the sad little old lady pad where I will live with my cats and two pieces of the furniture from my previous life that doesn't fit in with the proportions of the new place. If I don't get Alzheimers in the meantime. Because all that is a distinct and reachable possibility now. Death, disease, dementia, disability - they are all there, hovering, like pro-lifers outside an abortion clinic, ready to grab you as you walk past. What will get me. How many years before they do? One, or twenty? And so I do sums. None of my kids have children yet. Only one is married. None look likely to make me a grandparent any time soon, so say I get one in the next five years - I'll be 63. That gives me ten good years of being around and available, all being well (and who knows?) so the likelihood is that I may not see even my first grandchild graduate from college, let aloe get married. Will I be around long enough to know them. To make any sort of impression. To get the chance to rehabilitate myself from being a fairly terrible mother into an okay grandmother? Will I be gone as my own parents were when and if my kids' lives hit a bump and they need help? Can I be there for them? Will I have time to just be there for myself? At 58 I'm still sharing a home with my adult children. I've never actually lived alone with a partner. My ex and I had fifteen months alone before we were parents and though he left, I stayed and got the kids, albeit the grown up kids. And now one of their wives. My lover moved in when I was ill three years ago and we had five months alone, with a lodger while my youngest was in College and my other son was at University. But since then both those kids have returned, left and returned again. I've never really known what it's like to be a partner in a relationship that existed only for we two. Will there be time? Will I plant and plan a garden? It's not over yet, but I realise I haven't even started.
This year I have to move. I have to pack up my old life and move to a new life in a place I don't want to be in a suburb I don't know, in a house that isn't this one. I'm happy to change. I'd move tomorrow, yesterday even for a new start, but I hate that circumstances are forcing me to live in an area I don't want to away from everything I know and love, from neighbours and history. I say it will be good for me, and it will, but that too is terrifying. I want to wind the time back, not to replay what I've done but maybe do it differently. I want to stop everything, hit pause, and sleep for a year, and figure out what I'm going to do next before I restart the clock. I want my kids back, I want my kids gone, I want to keep them close, and see them settled elsewhere. I want to settle down and I want to kick it all up and just take off. I want adventure and safety, calm and excitement. One day I want nothing more that this and the next I feel I'll die if I don't get away from it all.
Blue, blue, blue, blue.
And so fucking fat you could see me from space.
I've said before, somewhere else, that my life has turned into an exercise in simple arithmetic. I just turned 58. That's two more makes sixty. I can't possibly be sixty. It's terrifying. Like coming home from the store and discovering you've accidentally shoplifted a Tiffany necklace and it's only a matter of time before the CCTV exposes you. Not that I've been in Tiffany more than twice in my life and frankly, if I had shoplifted anything from there, it really would be an act of madness as I care nothing, less than nothing for the ridiculous crap they sell. I like the blue boxes though. A metaphor. I hate the crap, but like the packaging. But the thought of actually being me - at 60, such a foreign number, such a foreign place, is just beyond my comprehension. My bones, my poor aching, beaten, battered bones that ache from doing nothing more than being attached to my body, are less surprised and aghast at the idea than I am, but there it is, and the maths begin. How long do I have? ten years or so until I can retire in legal terms, though financially I should work till maybe two years before I die as then I'd have enough money to live till the last day. Unfortunately, in most cases, you don't get that sort of notice. Or fortunately, even, as who'd really want to know. If I move this year into another house, I have maybe ten years before I need to think of moving again, downsizing to the sad little old lady pad where I will live with my cats and two pieces of the furniture from my previous life that doesn't fit in with the proportions of the new place. If I don't get Alzheimers in the meantime. Because all that is a distinct and reachable possibility now. Death, disease, dementia, disability - they are all there, hovering, like pro-lifers outside an abortion clinic, ready to grab you as you walk past. What will get me. How many years before they do? One, or twenty? And so I do sums. None of my kids have children yet. Only one is married. None look likely to make me a grandparent any time soon, so say I get one in the next five years - I'll be 63. That gives me ten good years of being around and available, all being well (and who knows?) so the likelihood is that I may not see even my first grandchild graduate from college, let aloe get married. Will I be around long enough to know them. To make any sort of impression. To get the chance to rehabilitate myself from being a fairly terrible mother into an okay grandmother? Will I be gone as my own parents were when and if my kids' lives hit a bump and they need help? Can I be there for them? Will I have time to just be there for myself? At 58 I'm still sharing a home with my adult children. I've never actually lived alone with a partner. My ex and I had fifteen months alone before we were parents and though he left, I stayed and got the kids, albeit the grown up kids. And now one of their wives. My lover moved in when I was ill three years ago and we had five months alone, with a lodger while my youngest was in College and my other son was at University. But since then both those kids have returned, left and returned again. I've never really known what it's like to be a partner in a relationship that existed only for we two. Will there be time? Will I plant and plan a garden? It's not over yet, but I realise I haven't even started.
This year I have to move. I have to pack up my old life and move to a new life in a place I don't want to be in a suburb I don't know, in a house that isn't this one. I'm happy to change. I'd move tomorrow, yesterday even for a new start, but I hate that circumstances are forcing me to live in an area I don't want to away from everything I know and love, from neighbours and history. I say it will be good for me, and it will, but that too is terrifying. I want to wind the time back, not to replay what I've done but maybe do it differently. I want to stop everything, hit pause, and sleep for a year, and figure out what I'm going to do next before I restart the clock. I want my kids back, I want my kids gone, I want to keep them close, and see them settled elsewhere. I want to settle down and I want to kick it all up and just take off. I want adventure and safety, calm and excitement. One day I want nothing more that this and the next I feel I'll die if I don't get away from it all.
Blue, blue, blue, blue.
And so fucking fat you could see me from space.
