Feeling your age. An expression often used when you feel old. Unable to do something that you used to do with ease. Or used as an insult to infer a loss of physical ability. Feeling your age.
Yet in my head I’m forever twenty four. I’m constantly surprised when I look in the mirror. I have to do a quick check that it’s me. I look older. When I dream or imagine myself doing something I’m always younger. Reality kicks in when I actually attempt something, or my body tells me to pack it in and act your age. These days I’m definitely feeling my age. How old do you feel?
Category: life
Reflections
I’m walking on a beach reflecting. It reminds me of another beach, long ago at the start of my career. I was sent to the South coast to work with a client. I was lodged at a lovely hotel with pristine beaches. It’s the end of a productive day and I’m walking along the beach on a call discussing the future with a friend. The road ahead looks bright.
Cut to the present. I’m on another beach, memories of the first triggered. How did life pan out? Did my career go how I wanted it to go? Am I where I wanted to be at this age?
Reflections.
Death notification by text
I received a notification that a relative had died. I was told by text.
I hadn’t seen or heard from them in a long while. They’d moved away, lived their life, then apparently moved back into the area we all group in at some point without telling anyone. Not a million miles away, living their life. Then diagnosed with cancer a few months back. Terminal. Still no reaching out to anyone. Until it was too late. Now their son is going through their phone book notifying people, anyone, they once knew.
I wasn’t in the phone book, so I was notified second-hand, by text. By the way X has died. A follow-on text after an initial one asking a mundane question about something unrelated. With the death notification an afterthought, or received as one.
The departed was a part of my childhood up to my teens. A long time ago. The pain isn’t as raw as it would be with someone closer or who has spent a lot of time with you recently. Yet there is still pain, of loss, of sadness.
All those years, laughs, sadness, memories, brought to an end with a simple text message.
Men in trees
I was at a low point. Unemployed, or on a break, depending on how you want to spin it. Not much to do but binge watch TV and while away the days.
I discovered one show that resonated. A person trying to find themselves, in a remote location. Plus it was entertaining. Men in trees.
It starred Anne Heche as a self help guru type whose relationship had broken down and was at a loss in life. She was on a book tour and in a remote village in Alaska when her life fell apart. She decides to stay and figure things out. I was figuring things out. I enjoyed the show. Watched every episode.
It’s one of those things that triggers memories. When I hear or read it mentioned, or Anne Heche, it reminds me of that period of my life. Good memories. So I was sad to hear when she passed. Whatever her life was, she entertained me during a low point. She cheered me up and I thank her for that. It’s sad when anyone passes, whether you know them, or they affect your own life in some distant way. But I wanted to say thanks for Men in trees.
Fast Tech
We are an impatient lot. We love our fast food and our fast tech. The latter, a term used to define cheap electronic gadgets and devices. You can go online and have one delivered to you tomorrow for less than the cost of a meal.
Portable battery chargers, adapters, fans, night lights, wireless doorbells, motion sensors, bag trackers, and just about anything else that you or someone can dream up and develop cheaply and have shipped by slow boat from Asia to your country for you purchase next day delivery.
These gadgets use a lot of rare earth minerals and other materials that are both costly to collect, manufacture, and recycle. The result is that all this fast tech is ending up in landfills and amateur processing plants around the world. Just look on YouTube at the videos of people collecting circuit boards to melt off the precious metals, or others burning the plastics to clear the mountains of e-waste. It is both damaging to the environment and human health. Yet we keep buying more and more of this fast tech because it’s cheap and serves a current need, just like fast food.
That’s the price
I hate it when you know that people are price gouging, or that you can buy something cheaper elsewhere, or online. But I want it now. Convenience buying, and pricing.
I’ve come to realise something: That’s the price.
It comes down to supply and demand. People are free to set the price of something to whatever they want, no matter how you feel about it. You don’t have to buy it, but if you do you have to pay the price stated.
Either pay it or move on. What’s the option? There’s no point moaning about how someone is ripping people off. So what, it’s called commerce. If people are willing to pay it then there is sufficient demand for it at that price. Otherwise they’d lower the price.
That’s the price.
Bad associations
It’s interesting how the brain, or memory, can associate bad things that happened, with objects. For example I see a Skoda Fabia and I instantly think of the time a kid out for a joy ride tried to run me off the road in one. I have a bad memory associated with that particular model of car. So when I was loaned one recently my brain immediately went oh no. Yet there was nothing wrong with the car itself, only a bad association.
Objects can trigger memories, good and bad. Having bad associations can affect your decision making. You may be less likely to make use of something if you have a bad memory associated with it, even if the memory is not of that object itself being bad in any way. And that can be a bad thing in itself. Especially if the object in question could be good for you, or is the best option in the current situation.
One thing you could do is to rewrite the narrative. Try and find some good to associate with the object, to counteract the bad, or cancel it out entirely. With the Skoda, my friend had one for years and loved it to bits. It was her favourite car. It served her well and even I had a few lifts in it. It wasn’t the car that was bad in my association, it was the driver. So switch the narrative to them, not the car.
The car is just one example. We all develop these bad associations over time. We link them to foods, drink, vehicles, people, places, and just about anything.
It’s worth looking at the memory as a whole and working out where the actual bad lies.
Big expenses
Whenever I’m faced with big expenses they always seem to arrive at inappropriate times, where you really need whatever needs fixing to continue to work right now. You are presented with a quote and it’s big, like really big, like I can buy a cheap car with that sort of money big.
You have to make a decision quickly. What are your options? Just pay it, find an alternative, try something else time allowing? I try to buy time to find a more financially pleasing option, but there never is one. So you have to make a decision quickly with whatever info you have at hand and hope it was the right one.
New boilers, house repairs, car repairs, medical bills, you name it. Big expenses are everywhere. Just waiting to strike at the most annoying moment when they can cause the most annoyance. Hitting your wallet where it hurts the most.
What others are doing
Some days I catch myself thinking about what others might be doing. Looking on social media I see friends on holiday, at parties and social events, having fun, and enjoying life. Then I look at my day ahead: crossing some jobs off my to do list, a spot of gardening, playing a game with my kids. Maybe we should go out for the day? I check. They want to play on the games console, watch some TV, or play in the garden.
Shouldn’t we be doing something more exciting I think? Are we boring, or wasting our days? Our worldview is skewed by the Instagram lifestyle, the influencers, and social media gurus. Feeding us a version of the perfect life. Something to strive for. But is it reality?
It turns out my family is happy with their plans for today. The sun is out and the garden is a nice place to be, or the room with the games console. Everyone is happy and that’s the main thing.
The trick is not to measure by comparison to others, but how happy you all are. Stack the memories, the experiences sure. But the days where you just hang out at home together counts just as much as a holiday.
As long as you can
I was watching the classic movie Gleaming the Cube starring Christian Slater as a skateboarder. It’s a cool movie, you should check it out if you haven’t already*. When I first watched it I wanted an underground den like his friend in the movie.
I learned much later that the actual skateboarding was performed by Tony Hawks. I saw Tony on YouTube recently trying to perform one of his old tricks. He was in his 50s.
This got me thinking.
How long can you do something that you loved doing when you were young, but becomes harder as you age, or is considered not something one does when older, such as skateboarding?
My answer: As long as you can!
If you love something and it brings you joy, why not keep on doing it regardless of what others think? Keep on doing it until your body and mind will no longer let you. Ollie that skateboard, ride that BMX, surf the waves, rollerblade, skoot, and do whatever floats your boat until you no longer can.
Not everything is forever, so enjoy it as long as you can.
*Also check out Pump up the Volume.