Getting older let’s be honest, is a bit shite. Having said that I’m quite happy to age as opposed to dying at say, twenty seven, but it is shite nonetheless.
I remember reading somewhere that you could tell who the older people in your workplace were by virtue of their attitude on a Monday morning. Those over 30 would be fresh faced and up for the week ahead whilst those in their 20s would be absolutely bollocksed and looking like they needed a morning in bed.
At thirty four, the last milestone in the sands of time that I have passed, people have started saying I’m a bit like my Dad. Have you seen my Dad lately? He looks a lot like Bob Carolgees wearing Spit The Dog as a coat. A ridiculous comparison. Or is it?....For I have started to sound like him. I speak to my daughter like he spoke to me. Loudly. All because subconsciously I reckon she doesn’t understand what I’m saying. And it is a well known fact that if you speak loudly and more slowly to someone with not much English, the message will get through. I have started shouting down the phone. I have started making that ‘Hep!’ noise when I stoop down to pick something up. I even made the mistake of wearing a cardigan on a lads night out. They reckoned I looked like someone’s Nan as opposed to my father. Pepped me up somewhat I can tell you.
Thirty four is scary. You walk through Dublin and you see people who look vaguely familiar and it’s only ten minutes later that you go “That was James Smyth! Fuck he looks old! Where’s his fucking hair gone? The last time I saw him he was up against a wall with some blonde!” and then you remember that that was probably sixteen years ago. And then you remember that it was the blonde you were ‘seeing’ at the time. And then you grin and go “Fuck ‘im”.
With thirty odd years behind you, by now you should’ve realised that you should start putting a bit of responsibility into that thick head of yours. Everyone else seems to find ‘Questions And Answers’ or any other political debate show massively interesting. Not you. To you it’s all a bit of load of old bollocks and you’d rather watch ‘The Royle Family’ or even, God forbid, a re-run of ‘On The Buses’ on Dave if they’re on at the same time. You’re not about to start nodding sagely or proffering your political opinion to every Tom Dick or Harry just because life tells you that it is the way you should be.
Talk of interest rates replaces talk of which band is playing in Dublin next week. Talk of what your kids are up to replaces talk of what you got up to at the weekend.
And you wonder to yourself quietly, who wrote that line “At twenty five, your mind starts changing, regret starts paining, the sky starts raining responsibility not possibility”? And you want to get into your DeLorean and travel back to 2002 and punch him in the face.
What an idiot.
