Fifty Seven Today

Despair, despondency, gloom, melancholy, hopelessness, dejection. All these burden me this morning. I awake to skies covered in gray clouds, a slow dismal rain edging down painfully from above. A listlessness that once I thought fit only for Grandpa Broon in the Sunday Post grips me. Sluggishly I wander through from the west wing and ponder the day ahead.

Today I will note how not only are the policemen younger than they once were, so are grandmothers, although round here that may not mean too much of course. The traffic will be faster than yesterday, the pop music will be totally unintelligible and the stuff the kids talk about will be less so. However, once again that may not mean too much. Rude cards may arrive later, you know, the ones with a picture of a hill covered in little animals and the question, 'Which one are you?' on the front. Inside it reads, 'Your the one that's over the hill!' As she pushes the cards through the letterbox I will hear the postgirl muttering, 'Next time its one from the queen!' Although of course she has never liked me since she rejected my advances and I remarked 'Well your mother liked it!' Had there been a cake I suspect someone would organise the local firemen to turn out 'just in case.' And they are much younger than me also!

I look at the list of things to do, job hunt, exercise, lumbago ointment, and begin to despair again. I would say, 'I am not old, just mature.' But far too many folk have disagreed with me too often on that point to bother trying it. So I will sit here and wonder where all those years have gone. When was 1978 and that good thing happened? The things I wanted to do, the places to visit, the hope. The energy I had in my thirties, he future I planned, where did it all go and how did I end up here in the back of beyond......?

Who said 'Rejoice in all situations, I say again, rejoice?' Well you can get stuffed! If you want me I will be howling at the moon.