Fourteen

Well here I am in my new, altogether strange job. Got it through a mate at … and he’s the one that’s supposed to be giving me things to do. Except, the thing is, I haven’t seen him for two days, and haven’t a clue where he is. I’ve done everything I can think of to do, and now I’m stuck, sitting in a mostly deserted office, with time on my hands and a computer on which I could keep them occupied. It would be the perfect writing environment – apart from the sense that I’ve always got one eye looking over my left shoulder just in case someone should appear…
But writing: well, that’s been a bit of a no-go this last month, since I got embroiled in essays and then finding-a-job (spurred by oh-my-I’ve-got-debt). It’s kinda sliding away again – but, as ever, I’m hopeful that it’ll come back. I guess I’m not really in any kind of rush – and what I’ve come to realise is, I’m not one of these people that have a burning desire to write, to get something out of me, and to express. Even in my songs, which I went hardcore for a couple of years ago, there’s nothing new, nothing waiting to be said. I just feel like I’ve done with it all, made my peace with the world and myself; I just feel like everything’s okay, and if I ever need to say something, it doesn’t have to be in a song, or a journal (or a blog, as I’m begrudgingly realising that’s what this is, like the guy who’s finally given up trying to call Marathon Snickers), I can say it to my girlfriend, to a pal, to someone in the real world. It’s not that difficult – and, in all honesty, it doesn’t happen that often anyway. I guess I’m getting calm.

Also, I guess I’m getting old. I’ve turned thirty now – and that’s all well and good – and something about me has changed. Even looking back to who I was when I started uni, not even four years ago, I seem so young. Twenty-six – it even sounds young. Don’t even get me started on 23 or 24 – that’s like being a baby. And that’s the me that I so often think about – and want to write about – the me that hitched and travelled and slept by the road and just wandered wandered wandered every way where thing. And that’s the me that I would probably be hard-pressed to ever live again. Those things just don’t really appeal – well, they do, until I start thinking about the reality of it all – ‘cos I genuinely am more into safe things these days, staying at home, getting the shopping in, watching a bit of comedy…very normal, average, everyday stuff. Boring? I dunno – that would be quite judgmental. But definitely different. And maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to go.

There’s a big field full of sheep just down the road from our house – I pass it everyday – and just now the new lambs are in there, running about and suckling on their mummies, and being kind of wild and funny and cute and all stupid, all at the same time. They look like they’re having fun – they’re adorable – and then you get to thinking about human babies and children, and puppies and kittens, and even baby tigers and horses and chicks, and you think, man, all things at that age are just great, just having a laugh, just being cute and crazy and not caring about bills and blah blah and the trials and vicissitudes of life – and what happens to us all as we get older, as get more boring, less adventurous, stop doing fun things, stop being wild and crazy...? You can get depressed thinking about that – thinking about the passing of your youth (at least, I imagine some people do) – but watching those sheep, and thinking about how this is spread throughout the natural world, I just think, that’s the way it goes. It tickles me and I feel okay with it, and with the way things go. I feel okay that my belly is growing and I’d rather sit at home and play spider solitaire than go sleep in a field in Norway, just for the hell of it. The old sheep chew the grass and get on with it. Lambs are cute but mad; they bounce all over the shop; they get frightened by any little thing. I guess that’s what your youth is supposed to be – a time of discovery, of adventure, of tasting the world, in all it’s sweet and bitter flavours – and then it ends, and you take what you’ve learned and kick back somewhat, and devote yourself to bringing up the next crop of lambs (or something). In any case, it’s all okay by me...