Friday, 29 June 2012

Birthday Blues


Well, the end of another working week is near and my odometer of life has also clicked round to another digit. Forty two years......and counting.

My best moment of the week was when someone at work asked my age and didn’t believe I was that old, which in a backhanded way was a compliment I suppose.

I don’t tend to celebrate my birthday these days, in fact not for a long time really. It’s just another day, but people insist on buying me cake and sending me cards with footballs on them. I’m forty bloody two for god sake, I don’t play with footballs anymore, I don’t go fishing and I’m never going to have a red sports car either. The one apt card I received just had a picture of a large glass of beer on it, now that I can relate to.
I am the proverbial grumpy old git these days. Everything annoys me, people irritate me and I just don’t seem to have the enthusiasm for “fun”.

I wish life was a bundle of laughs, but it’s not. It’s bills, it’s hassle from work, it’s having to walk the dog when I just want to read the paper, it’s dealing with a pedantic autistic 9 year old, a “Dad, Can I have..” 12 year old and a PMT laden 40 year old.

Sometimes I just want them to leave me alone. Patience is not my virtue and I guess I have become increasingly less tolerant of repetitive situations and maybe just a bit fed up with life.

Then, sometimes I have a moment of clarity and I feel incredibly guilty for being angry at them. I realise I should be grateful for still having the opportunity to be on this planet and I remind myself that my brother died at the age of 21. I have been here twice as long as he got to be, and yet here I am moaning and groaning about how crap everything is.

When he died, I was 26 and actually used that as a driver for myself to live my life in a better, more positive way and this worked for a while. Somewhere along the way, this mantra has been lost and gradually overtaken by frustration and apathy.

I can’t foresee myself ever being entirely happy with the cards I’ve been dealt, but I need to find some way to appreciate life a bit more. Perhaps I need more “me” time or a change of scenery now and then. Perhaps I just need to man up and stop feeling sorry for myself.

Perhaps, I need to start celebrating birthdays properly and start having some “fun”.

2 comments:

  1. Yup, you need to try and get back to the fun things in life. Put some good tunes on and sing in the car. Dance like a loon in the kitchen. Watch a comedy or a rom-com on DVD.

    But if you're feeling shitty, trying to man up and ignore those feelings won't do any good. You need to try and sort the issues. You time is very important!

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    Replies
    1. Good advice, I need to shake it out of me and start enjoying things again.... All this rain doesn't help, its been dire for a month, I am much happier in the Sun ! Thanks for commenting :-)

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