Conduit – 24th December 2021

You’re just a filter for fine foods and wine
You get a hold of it and say, “it’s mine”
Consumers of more, you’ve got it all
And it’s lonely at the top of the fall

An empty vessel, a temporary fill
Sieved away and now it’s empty still
If you hold too long it becomes a block
Account your life by taking stock

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Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful for my wheat bag and microwave to help me with my aching neck. It’s a comfort more than a help.

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Now that the winter solstice has passed, it already feels as if the sun rises much earlier and the weather a degree or two warmer. The inertia of this rolling planet is building into the next storm of heat.

I talked with Amy last night about stopping work again and she joked (maybe) about in ten months, after the new laptop I’ve ordered is paid off. I only actually need the laptop for work. If I weren’t working then the computer I have would be fine. Anyway, I would love to stop working in ten months time – if not sooner!

I would miss the kids so much though and I would definitely miss watching them grow and develop into adults. Whatever they choose to do with their lives.

Tomorrow we will go with Amy’s parents to Singha Park to eat pizza. Maybe I’ll have a beet. That’s my Christmas!

I read an interesting interview yesterday from a blog called Oldster – talking to people about how they feel and deal with getting older. I am thinking about the same kind of things. The questions and the interviewees’ answers were very interesting. I thought I should try and interview myself and answer the questions here.

Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think?

I think I really only associate myself with me as am now. Sometimes I remember things I’ve done and they feel like they happened to someone else. Like a movie or a dream.

There are two points in my life that profoundly impacted me and those memories are clear and strong but they feel like they happened to a different version of me (which they did, really). I can’t be that person again or would even want to be but I do feel nostalgic for the pleasant feeling I had during those times, which felt few and far between as they were happening during my teenage years. That is my first age (nostalgic age).

I was a ball of contradictory confusion. I was often miserable and uncertain about anything. Then I was also looking for happiness and was confident in my selfishness. I wouldn’t wish to go through those times again, except with the wisdom I have now.

The other age in my mind is from meeting Bronwyn around 1992 until around 2002. That age was really what I would say built on my foundations of youth. It wasn’t really until I came out of that that I truly discovered who I am. I’m still not always happy with that person but I found acceptance through all my experiences.

So these two stages are really my main growth stages and they stick out to me for that reason. Now, I feel that I am in a constant state of growth and it is not so much defined by a specific time. In my mind, I am still an adventurous 20-year-old as a somewhat wiser 54-year-old.

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The Week That Was – 11th March 1979