I am forty six !
Why this thought chose to be the one that woke me this morning, I have no idea. I thought there must be a reason so I dwelt on it for a while as the sun rose in the sky and the invisible bird sang its tuneless song to the whole neighbourhood. That reminds me a friend of Charlotte’s mentioned the other day that this invisible bird may in fact be a frog, so for the past few mornings as soon as the day has given enough life to my legs to operate in a fashion that resembles walking, I have been dashing around the chalets in my underpants gazing up into the trees trying to find the invisible bird. Which in itself is no mean feat because at the moment with the rains, the ground around here is like lightly greased Teflon in Slipperysville. And well worn Crocs are not renowned for their adhesive abilities. I have on more than one occasion ended up on my arse with my feet in their bright yellow Crocs wrapped round my ears looking rather foolish, as I slip virtually naked down the hill to the dam. But all this effort was not in vain. I can now categorically say that the invisible bird, is a bird, and is not always invisible, but jolly good at hiding. My next challenge is to Identify it properly so I know what name to put on the endangered species list when I get hold of it.
Anyway back to my thoughts of where I am in life’s unceasing countdown. I realised that I was probably thinking of all this as I was feeling so rough having thoroughly over done it last night, and have been careless enough to have given my entire system a right old kicking on all fronts lungs liver and stomach. I was now feeling all the ills from what seemed like a perfectly good idea last night.
So as of today, I am not drinking during the week, I will cut down to one cigar a day and I am going back on the diet that jumped whole heartedly out the window this weekend.
Being forty six means in the great scheme of things that for a reasonable innings I have only got another twenty four more years left. And I am sorry but that really is not enough. I have so many things to do that will require more time than that so I am going to have to eke out at least another thirty five years more. Now I have good reason to believe that I can do this as my great grandmother lived to one hundred and three and only gave up smoking when she was ninety nine. On the flipside my grandfather only made it to fifty seven so maybe I won’t draw too much comfort from that.
Then there is the whole retirement issue, what a nightmare. I sincerely hope that when I reach retirement age I will not be working for anyone else, but will be able to continue doing my own thing working for myself as long as I am physically able. My father retired at sixty five and basically from a man who was full of life and fit in both mind and body, suddenly had nothing to fully occupy his mind, he now suffers from chronic altsheimers and does not know what was going on one hour ago, how or what is going on around him and who anyone is apart from my mother. It’s tragic to witness and I really don’t want to end up like that.
When I am at retiring age I want to be living in Africa with lots of space and my children around me, at the first signs of mental decay I want them to send me out into the bush to go and feed the cats.
I have decided as of now, I am going to make sure that I never regret a day. And live each one to the full.
At the age of forty six it’s time to start growing up.....................
Nah there’s enough grown up people in the world already and they still manage to cock it up.
Denzil Bark.
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