In my teens and not long after my Guinea pig had died, my Dad said to be careful as the felt tip I was using was a permanent marker. I thought how unfair it was that a pen could outlive a pig.

Maybe it’s something to do with Remembrance Day this week but I’ve been thinking a lot about impermanence. There’s a running gag in the play I am rehearsing just now, where my character goes into apoplexy every time her twin sister mentions her age. I’ve always teased a friend of mine who also refuses to identify with her real age and prefers instead to keep her date of birth as nineteen porky-pie! These days am thinking there is maybe something in her positive denial.

Am at that stage in life when girlfriends are losing their mums. There’s been quite a few funerals lately and for one pal, we’d been pregnant at the same time, her daughter’s wedding. As I watched my son hug his lifelong pal, on her big day, I thought how I remember holding them both as new born babies in my arms, what felt like, only yesterday.

I’m often heard quip, ‘Oh I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.’ Suddenly this jibe feels passed its sell by date and I remind myself that it is me that writes you the wee gag

‘You know you’re old when…’ each week.

Then I think of the adage: When you’re young, you don’t know, but you don’t know, you don’t know. In your twenties and thirties, you don’t know, and you know you don’t know. In your forties you know but you don’t know you know but, in your fifties, you know, and you know that you know.

Seven years ago, I wrote the one woman show ‘The F Word’ to get my head round turning fifty, in it, I’d figured it was all fab: I said

‘In my former years, I often felt frazzled, fitful, foolish, flustered and frightened but in my fully fledged, flourishing fifties, I feel much more, fulfilled, fortunate, fruitful, friendly, flirtatious, flexible, as well as feisty’. Frankly, now that am heading for the next big O, reading those final F’s, I feel like a bit of a fraud!

So, I’ve now come up with a strategy inspired by my nephew. It’s a version of Mindfulness; which is like the new rock and roll, it’s so popular amongst healing professionals. The nephew wanted me to use the stop watch on my phone to time him on the obstacle course. We decided to wait for a fresh minute to start. We stared at the screen. After what felt like an entirety and with still no change, he said, ‘Auntie I think your phone has died’.

I’ve started to appreciate slowing down and really ‘hoovering’ up stuff. Making a point of stopping to take stock; to consolidate and celebrate what I’ve got. It made me realise time can be mucked about with it. I can feel it stretch like a gummy figure my son had when he was wee. Maybe I’ll try and get one of them for my granddaughter when she comes. Oh, and by the time I’m allowed to take her away on day trips, we’ll both get on the bus for free!

THIS WEEKS HIGH FALUTIN CONUNDRUM

The continues passage of existence, recorded as events which pass from potentiality in the future, through the present onto a state of finality in the past, ostensibly soars air bound whenever we find ourselves in a state of pleasurable enjoyment.

LAST WEEKS HIGH FALUTIN CONUNDRUM

It is veritably the case that no such dwelling in existence can be commensurate with ones very own abode.

Answer:

There is no place like home.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE OLD WHEN:

You get lost driving and decide to just enjoy the scenery of the alternative route.