Call the Midlife (43 page)

Once our Grump has moved on, we can then fling open the doors to welcome in that lovable old duo ECCENTRIC and BATTY.

Eccentric and Batty are never more entertaining than when happening around kids. They love adults who no longer see the point in behaving like grown-ups.

Grown up. Urgh!

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

Just one of the many useful reality checks and balances kids naturally impart to us.

Parenthood

The madness of having kids in the first place keeps all other madness at bay. We may have been constructed BK (Before Kids) but there’s very little space or time for frothy self-regard and posturing once the ankle-biters arrive.

Each kid is his or her own mini Big Bang, the beginning of a whole new universe. Another brilliant ball of expanding nonsense we stupidly try to make sense of first, before realizing they are just there to remind us what life’s really about.

A new benchmark for life is set when you have and accept that you have kids. You suddenly just ‘get it’ where before you might be scared to even chance a look. Our relationship with our own parents also changes dramatically. From not having a clue what the hell all the fuss was about, we’re suddenly fledgling members of the same club, singing from the same hymn-sheet as they were.

And now you stand together, shoulder to shoulder, looking fondly down at the next generation of confusion being primed to have a go.

It’s around this point we’re also allowed into the secret of the knowing smile. The one we’ve seen countless times on the faces of kindly nurses, Mother Teresa, Trevor McDonald, you know the one.

Suddenly we realize it comes from the ability to feel unconditional, unrequited and selfless love. It’s a smile of pure joy, of freedom, of being released from the burden of ‘what is it all about and why am I here?’ More than anything, it is a smile of abject relief.

Grandmas and granddads that get to dote over their grandchildren live with such smiles, constant smiles beaming from ear to ear, with loving eyes to match, permanently on the brink of tears. Could a human being be any more content?

Of course not.

One of the advantages of having a child when you’re young is becoming a young grandparent, which now, thanks to my daughter Jade, is a realm I have entered. The opposite of where I sit chronologically with my two young sons. Like my own dad, I was well into my forties when Noah and Eli came into the world.

My father is now deceased, God rest his soul, and there’s little we can do about that, just as it would seem there is little death can do to thwart my mum at the other end of the mortality scale. She continues to defy all bad luck that comes her way by refusing to be brought down by anything death cares to throw at her. Even though she’s been beaten and battered, torn and bruised more than any other living person I know, she’s simply not interested in giving up the ghost of life anytime soon.

She was ninety on 17 September this year, the last but two to turn in after a night of revelry.

So there you have my immediate family. My most treasured possession in the world. And like homeland security to any chief of staff, my number one priority at all times.

The meaning of ‘life’ is to protect the lives of those who deserve it, along with those of the people we love.

There, I’ve said it. Problem solved. The philosophers can relax and go home now. Job done. We’re sorted.

Life is not only what happens
when
we get here. It’s also
how
we get here. That is the gift we are born to look after. Everything else should and must come second.

Because of the way my dad died when I was thirteen, perhaps, without being aware of it, I went on to associate parenthood automatically with being old and dying. No one thinks to tell a kid who loses a parent early that it’s precisely that.

Premature.

Not supposed to happen.

Not fair.

Not usually like this.

A serious bit of bad luck.

But – boy, should they.

A few tender and carefully chosen words would save millions of people from decades, sometimes whole lives, of misunderstanding, confusion and needless heartache.

To borrow a line from the movie
Fight Club
: the first rule about parenthood is, don’t talk about parenthood – except when a kid needs to know why one, or heaven forbid, both of them are no longer there anymore. And so we finish where we started.

How do we stick around for as long as we can for our own sake, as well as everyone else’s?

Dr Ed’s Top Ten Annual MOT Recommendations:

Ed says we should also always carry out an in-the-shower bumps and lumps look-out. And consider colonoscopy and endoscopy where high-risk/family history issues are concerned.

‘All the usual, but within reason and never to the extent of wasting anyone’s time unnecessarily. Not that this is an excuse for inaction, should there be genuine reason to suspect something may be wrong.

‘To recap, though, please tell your readers to remember the best things we can do to manage our well-being as we approach middle
age also happen to be the least expensive. Again, they are: stretch, walk, breathing exercises – and when it comes to what you stuff in your mouth, imagine you live in Italy and try to eat what they might.’

But, Doc – red meat? You said that was OK earlier, an advantage nonetheless!

‘Red meat’s not the end of the world and does give us protein and energy. But as a more general rule, if you stick to what grows out of the ground or on a tree and combine it with things that move quickly or swim in the sea, this time next year you might even feel like Superman.’

So that’s it, then.

‘Pretty much.’

The meaning of midlife is getting midlife to what we want it to mean. It is here to help us realize that everything will only begin to make sense when we stop trying to make sense of everything. The gloriousness of being, finally ours for the taking.

It’s been a long lesson but now it’s jackpot time.

‘Those were the days!’ cry the living dead.

WELL, FUCK THEM!

‘These
are
the days!’

And they’re the best days we’re ever going to get.

Main engine start.

I ain’t hanging around for anyone.

Thus it transpired, after almost two years of reflection, projection, cogitation and discussion, that learning is never permanent, only temporary.

What I thought I knew about life I had forgotten, what I had yet to find out about life I was about to discover by looking in the wrong pools. Most importantly, what I really wanted from life had no room to breathe and therefore no capacity with which to shout out in my direction and halt my wandering focus.

The period before I met Natasha had become a sustained period of simplicity with regards to how I lived day to day. Sure, I owned a relatively substantial house in North London, but there was barely anything in it. Often there were more people than objects in it. A far preferable state of affairs to surrounding oneself with dust-collecting, inanimate ‘stuff’ of zero consequence, use or value. Books and glasses for wine and curtains to keep too-early morning light at bay – all perfectly permissible but little else surely. Yes, I’ll allow a few beds and a table and sofa and a quartet of upright chairs, but other than the basics what more does a single man need? I mean really. I didn’t even have a car at my disposal, something I almost completely forgot until the last gasps of writing this book.

Was I happy though? You bet. Delirious, no less. Over the moon. Ecstatic. Top of the world, or rather top of my world. Because, for the first time in a long time, my world was small enough for me to be on top of.

Since then, though, I had splurged again, more than ever before. Middle-aged spread of the worst kind. Materialistic. Like a fading old empire, ever more desperate to prove its worth by expanding further and further away from its centre. The very thing that made it what it is in the first place and held it together ever since. The more of everything else we have, the less of ourselves we are left with. Which is fine, if we’re referring to other human beings, but when we are merely referring to stuff and nonsense, how can this ever be a good thing?

In a heartbeat, I’d forgotten everything I had read, breathed in, slept on, considered, been conflicted by and inspired by. And the most alarming factor of all? Not once had I remembered how much I had forgotten, in SEVEN YEARS. It was as if the part of my brain responsible had been lobotomized one night while I was asleep. What a thoroughly bizarre thing to happen, even though I’m sure it happens to most of us, most of the time.

This is why it helps, why it’s essential to have a daily mantra of one type or another, to go back to, to make sure life isn’t running
away with us any more than we want it to. Whether it’s a regular walk by the river, a gym session, running, meditation, prayer, a nightly conversation with our loved ones over dinner, a diary, a checklist – it really doesn’t matter. As long as we have a daily Post-it note to remind ourselves of where we’ve come from, where we are and where we want to be and, most importantly of all, why we’re doing any of it in the first place.

I suppose what I have been missing is not so much a mission statement but more of a ‘mission accomplished’ statement. Along with a ‘maintain this mission’ statement.

That’s what this book and all the words within it and all the people I’ve met and learnt from and all the angst, revelation and resolution I’ve been confronted by on the way, has all been about. I knew there was something awry but I had no idea what it was. I was aware there was an itch but I didn’t know where to scratch.

Phew. Thank goodness for fifty, otherwise I would have been flailing about until the end of my days.

Why some people dread their birthdays I find very difficult to understand. Apart from the transparent nonsense to do with vanity or the fact our passport says we’re a year older. For me, from now on, I will use the passing of each of my own calendar years as an opportunity to take stock of how far I have travelled and developed in the last twelve months. I shall use that information as a guide to how I can be a better person for myself, and therefore everyone I am involved with and who has to put up with me, every day until I die.

As things stand right now, what I need to do is simple. I need to get back to the idyll where I was before I met Tash and introduce it to the idyll since I met Tash. The Recent Past + The Past = The Now.

Illustrations