This Sunday morning sees me relaxed and enjoying the blissful vista of a week away from work. I can't remember the last time I took time off and spent it at home. I usually take the opportunity to head M6-wards and absorb the Cumbrian balm of fells and water and my bff Emms. This time I decided that I'd have one of these staycations I've heard so much about. I have, naturally enough, made myself a to do list - possibly so that I can get to the end of the week and realise that I haven't done any of them, thereby giving me a stick to beat myself with. I'm hoping that, once I've done the things I need to do, I'll have acres of time in which to write. That is the plan. I'll let you know whether or not anything gets accomplished.
There are some things this week that are written in stone. The first one is dinner with my family tomorrow. Its my birthday. I tried quite hard to sweep that fact under the carpet and pretend it wasn't happening, but it seems that isn't allowed. So I'm being taken out for tea in the afternoon and then dinner in the evening. It sounds ungrateful, I know, not to be happy that those I cherish want to show me that I too am loved. I am far from ungrateful. Its not that simple.
I understand that most people think of themselves as being a particular age even when that age is a faint dot on the horizon of their existence. I have accepted that in my head I'm 37. The fact that the calendar tells me a different story is the distressing part. I had no qualms about passing 40. That was okay. The discrepancy wasn't so great that I couldn't square it with myself. Right up to 45, things were fine. The rebellion and denial seemed to take on a life of its own when I got to 45+1. I suspect my daughters' remarks along the lines of 'you're closer to 50 than 40' didn't help. Bless them. I now find that 45+2 looms and I've started screaming in earnest 'STOP! Whoa! Wait a minute. No, no, no, just give me a little time to re-adjust. I WANNA GET OFF!' It's all happening a bit too fast. Life rips by and I don't know where it all goes. How did it get to August, for example? How did that happen? Maybe that's why I keep getting the urge to keep still. I suspect that some part of my brain thinks that if I keep still, it'll all slow down. It doesn't. I just find another day has gone and I've not done anything. This then leaves me with the frustrated feeling that I've accomplished nothing of any import. Which is true.
I've started to think that maybe I'm having a mid-life crisis. Mind you, if this is mid-way, I'm obviously expecting to live to see 94. I suppose that's good and entirely possible, just so long as all my faculties are in tact and I haven't got to the point where someone is having to wipe my bottom for me. I don't want to see my dignity exit stage left and leave me centre stage, thank you very much. I want the curtain to come down while my dignity and I are still hand-in-hand. I don't think that's too much to ask.
And my age isn't the only thing that's frightening the pants off me this week. Looming like a playground bully intent on stealing my dinner money, is the second week in September. What, you may ask, is so scary about the second week in September? Well, that's the week that both my girls go off to Uni - Jo back to Wales and Tasha to Sunderland. I've got used to Jo's absence. She started her degree last year and since then has completed her month in South Africa learning how to use firearms and tracking animals which could kill her in a variety of ways. She's also spent a year in Cardiff, so I've inured myself to her antics. If she can survive the African bush with a bunch of Uni students and Saturday nights in South Wales, then she'll be okay. I remember bawling my eyes out on the drive back up the M4 when I first dropped her off, seeing myself as someone akin to the nasty owner in the Fox and the Hound who abandons their puppy in the woods. I remember getting home and the ache of walking past her empty bedroom and bawling all over again. However, last year I had the solace of Tasha doing her Foundation course, staying at home and re-decorating and moving into Jo's room. This time Tasha's going as well. And Sunderland feels a long way away. I've not been separated from both my babies for longer than 10 days since they were born. It all feels very final. When they come home now, it'll only ever be temporary. My little terraced house suddenly feels cavernous.
So it seems I have more than one reason for wishing that today would go on forever. I know what I want for my birthday ... a time machine.
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