Changes in perspective.

This is a piece I wrote last weekend, in the early hours of the morning not realising how my life would change over the next few days.

I haven’t written for a while. I guess that the original premise of this blog has changed. I started it as a grumpy bloke, writing about the things that, generally, peed me off. Children being taken to stately homes, bad drivers, selfish people, you know the sort of thing, all those things that annoy a lot of people but because we are British we keep to ourselves. With the dawning of the new job that changed.

All of a sudden I was a different person. No longer so grumpy but realising many things about myself. One thing is that I am a mediocre person. I know a lot of things about a lot of things. I can talk about Shakespeare or quantum physics, interested in everything but never really picking one subject to be good at. If you talk, and act, with confidence people will believe you know what you are doing.

I work in a primary school. 400 + kids who, mostly, seem to believe that I am indestructible. This enormous, giant of a man who strides around as if he owns the place. I can fix anything, and if I can’t I know someone who can. Strong as an ox and knowing more than their teachers (but only because I am older than them). For example; there was a block of flats being built opposite the school. The fencing around it was supported by sleepers, 9ft long chunks of solid timber. When they started to take it down I figured that some of those sleepers would be useful to make things for the school. I wandered over and asked the team taking them down if I could have some. ‘Sure. Help yourself.’ I picked one up and shouldered it. Now this was school kicking out time and the kids were streaming out of the school. And there was me, with this massive lump of wood on my shoulder, crossing the road back to the school. ‘Wow! you are really strong!’ I heard one shout at me. Another one who saw me in the false light. I made some comment and carried on into the school. What the kids didn’t see was me dropping it just round the corner and wondering if I needed to call the office to bring the defibrillator. All of a sudden I realised that I am no longer 24 but 54. Past middle aged, a grandfather heading to old age .I  made a joke about it and people laughed. So did I.

Now I am sitting here, at my keyboard, at 00:30 feeling my mortality again. I have had a few funny turns just lately, walking down to the shops, it’s woken me up for the last two nights. Now that is probably why I am awake at this time of the night. That tiny piece of the mind that is scared of the dark, of the monsters that could be hiding in dark corners has taken control because there IS something in that dark corner. Took me a little while to work it out, but these are the symptoms of angina. A symptom of the fact that I am getting old. I am definitely not 24 anymore. All of a sudden I feel 94.

But I am invincible and indestructible. Intellectually, I know that the doctor will do his tests and if it tells him that I have angina he will put me on tablets, maybe statins and a spray. I am immortal, with a little help from medical technology.