Getting Old

I’m 31. And recently I’ve been feeling really old. Things that don’t seem that long ago actually are quite some years ago. In the last week I realized……..

• I have been working for ten years this year
• It is twenty years since I started Secondary School, or High School
• It is now eight years that I have been going to watch Scotland play international rugby
• It is twelve years since I went to live in Boston for a year
• It is five years since I came to work in Amsterdam

I really don’t know where the time goes. I remember when I was a teenager, I wanted to be older, so that I could drive, so that I could drink legally, so that I could be a grown up. And I remember my mother saying to me that once you reached 21, every year after that would go past quicker and quicker. And of course I didn’t believe her. And now, ten years on from 21, I realize how true those words are.

I was reading an interview with the Scotland rugby captain, he’s a similar age to me. He was commenting on the new players in the squad, and how young they were, being in there early 20s. He went on to explain that it just didn’t seem possible that guys with birth dates in the mid 80s could be playing in the same team as him. I think a guy played on Saturday, and he was 21, born January 1987. Stuff like that makes me feel old!

Ups & Downs

Something that has long held me curious is mood swings. And in particular downward mood swings. At least twice a week, for no apparent reason at all, I find myself having really bad days, where I feel angry at the world, with everything getting me down. There is no trigger that I am aware of that makes me feel this way, and in almost all instances I wake up the next day and I am back to ‘normal’ and don’t feel quite so down. I’d really love to get a handle on the logic that makes me feel this way. On days like today when this happens, I just want the day to be over. It brings with is a real sense of lethargy, laziness, and a general lack of interest in everything. On days like these I become a little bit of an actor, trying my best to act ‘normal’ to those around me so that I don’t let anyone see how I feel, or bring anyone else around me down.

Ideally, I’d figure out what causes these ups & downs so I could do something about them, but thus far, it seems to be completely random. I’ve thought long and hard about it and I can’t put my finger on anything specific that seems to cause it. Recently, I’ve just started to accept that this happens, deal with it as best as I can, and hope that the next day the feeling has gone again and I am back to ‘normal’. This time, it started last night, I was watching a DVD, a Kevin Smith movie, and I just became uninterested in it. An early night followed, which resulted in me wakening up this morning in a bit of a funk. It’s all very weird!