I have to admit it...
I'm kind of tightly wound, as humans go. I'm often told by people at work that what they like or dislike most about me is my laid-back style. "You're just so relaxed, and you make us feel relaxed" they beam... and i'm almost always stunned by this because i'm so rarely actually relaxed. I figure there must be some huge disconnect between my face and my brain. It's nice when people enjoy it and hugely frustrating when they don't. "Dammit this stuff is important and you look like you couldn't care less" grumpy older persons have been known to thunder at me. And I think "But i'm running at like a thousand kmh... i'm over-revving with nerves here and you think i...."
Not the point. And i don't know yet whether this is a place for sticking to the point.
See i was lying in bed this morning having been woken by garbage trucks and failed to get back to sleep. (Tightly wound - it's where i started) I'd got up and paced around looking for an important receipt and worrying about cleaning up the house we've just moved out of, and whether i could afford to hire a van for a day if the oppo wouldn't take some furniture and compounding all of this, worrying about work. I went away on holidays for three weeks (i'm a minister in a church, but i promise not to get all goddy on your ass if you keep reading... i don't think this is about that.) and when i got back a fairly significant thing had happened which meant that people's sense of trust and safety in this community needed to be addressed. In the Wire I remember the Deacon says to Sully "Men of God... we're always up in everybody's shit." I don't tend to work that way unless i have to. This morning, I knew i would have to and so i was wandering the flat in a slightly crazed manner.
And at six thirty the Redhead i live with found me and dragged me back to bed. In a manner borne of long practice, she talked me down. As i started to calm the hell down, she said "Hey something cool could happen today. What happens if today becomes the best day of your life?"
Here's the thing... My thought (although not spoken.. the redhead's patience is not, after all, boundless and her right elbow is sharp) was "Then something will have gone wrong."
There's something wrong there.
I noticed it straight away. Q. What happens if today becomes the best of your life? A. It better bloody not. Thaaat's not right.
So i lay thinking about myself, my friends and guys particularly at work vaguely my age.... edging into our late 30's ... our lives printing themselves across our faces. I look at myself in a mirror and the muppet-boy i always was is still there, but the eyes are maybe a little care-worn (although someone less charitable might simply say 'droopy') and there are lines there that ain't going anywhere.
And i don't wanna speak for my friends, but i feel somehow heavier than i did ten or even five years ago. I'm doing the same job, with similar responsibilities but i seem to carry them more. I'm aware, like others that if i don't take care of my body in a more deliberate way then it might stop taking care of me. It's not that life has no joy. It has heaps, the Redhead chief among them. But there's a sense somewhere that in some indefinable way that wasn't there five years ago, things matter.
Which, i'm told is all part of the growing up. It happens even to us gen x-ers who decided as a generation that nothing mattered, and if it did it would probably fuck you up anyway.
All of which is well and good, but how did i get to a point where i could even think "I'd better not have my best day ever today..." Do i wanna be a person who can think that?
So like all men of action, I resolved to blog. I wanna ask myself some questions here... Is this just what happens to guys my age, am i maybe a little depressed, is there something wrong with my job that a tough day at work precludes me from awesome dayhood...
Should i decide that i want back that guy who was generally open to having another best day... and i think i might... do i need some sort of bucket list (a list of things to do before you die) or a fucket list (a list of things you thought you should do but on reflection, probably don't wanna)? Am i in fact taking myself mega-too-seriously and mis-remembering some sort of English Summer where i was all carefree and lah de dah? Looking back over entries on my more general blog would suggest that i was always a little uptight.
So i'm gonna think, i'm gonna do some excersize, and i'm gonna eat more yoghurt. And see if there's a rediscovery of the joy in life somewhere along the way.
