In The Beginning.. there was Grub

14/10/08

So, I'm 40. Not a big deal really, but I find I can divide my life neatly into decades so far and that means this is a new stage in my life. Thus it DOES become a big deal. To add to this, it seems the last chapter of my life is closing with a clean finality that means there is no natural path suggesting itself, and most of my life has been pretty much a series of events, all linking smoothly from one to the next. All major leaps of direction have coincided with major events and also with the start of a new decade.
This time, though, there is need for a decision on which direction to take. Having lived my life in married bliss through most most of my 30's, I have decided to make a return to the muddied blur of my 20's. This decision perpetuated by my wife's desire for divorce, and the failure of the experiment of marriage has left me in no doubt that it is inadvisable for me!
So, it's me, me, me? Not quite, I have a daughter, soon to be 5, who doesn't need to say much to get me cake dispensing and may be just about the best thing that ever will occur in the whole stretch of earth-walking that will be documented here. This I am in no way uncomfortable with, as unconditional love is fairly unbeatable!

Anyway, to the business of this 'muddied blur'. Any recollection I have of the period I am attempting to recreate will be sporadic and unreliable as I have titled them well enough to cover the whole decades mood. There will be relevance to the Utopian decade that seperates the two more pertinant ones as there is are events contained that are caused by others some years earlier and was, in itself, far from staid and abstentious.

In fact the day begins with a mixture of both the manic pace of my 20's and the domesticity of my 30's when I awaken an hour late and have to rush my daughter to school! I blame my oversleeping on a bizarre dream that interrupted my sleep last night. I was called into action battling three 10ft crocodiles, only to be thwarted at what seemed to be the moment of victory by a fourth... I have applied a very literal interpretation to this dream.
As it was, I managed to get my rather shell-shocked daughter up, dressed, fed, and bussed to school as the bell began to ring. This, i feel, is testament to the power of WHAT'S BEST FOR MY DAUGHTER as I would have rolled over and got the sack had the situation been differant. But there will be time for the whole 'me and work' story later maybe, though I would say I love HAVING a JOB, I just haven't yet found a JOB I want to HAVE. If this doesn't make sense it is not important right now, but I would expect it will cause flickers of recognition across many a face.

Having negotiated the school run, and having been invited out for a coffee with an old friend the day was calming to the point where I had to start thinking of how to get the direction of my life from the family show of recent years to the yoof tv so prelevant during my 20's. A decision made more urgent somehow by my friend, who had his own 40th some 6mths earlier, passing on the news that he was now a gout sufferer. Gout had previously been something I had in a box marked 'unnecessary knowledge'. It does though, raise an important fact. I am trying to bring about an attitude to life and a lifestyle of someone I was when I was twenty years younger. I can only say I recognise this fact and we shall just have to 'see how it goes'. I am under no illusions as to how comparable the two decades will be, but I am curious to see how it all turns out. I am not, in all truth, expecting any sort of happy ending. As will probably become apparent, my 'wild years' where not glamourous or productive in any way. In fact, this whole change of direction may be about unfinished business with an unfulfilled youth.

But as I will shortly be off to collect my lovely little girl (Shannon, by the way), I should set out the beginning of the whole endeavour. As fortune has it, I am required to head out tonight for the first fixture of a new season with the darts league. Great, I think, a night in the pub! Just the right place to start recreating a youth I can barely recall. Rather predictably though, I am skint! This may not be a bad thing, my youth was punctuated with many periods when I had to improvise and bluff my way to unrembrance and this could be a test of how my innovative side has fared in a world where decisions have been straightforward and simple, by virtue of being on behalf of others. We shall see what happens, I am feeling it may all hinge on the luck that led me to discover a very important factor of my younger days. The knowledge that something will always turn up was enough to get me out there long enough for something to actually turn up!