Even now there is retrospect. Even now there are things I would have done differently. Even now there is a constant placing of my own life against that most honest yard-stick of time. I didn’t really feel old until Steve Smith made his ton at the MCG in the boxing day test last year.
He was 25 and so was I. It was his 25th test match for Australia, he was the test captain (the second highest office in the land) and in the middle of Australia’s finest sporting ground at Australia’s most prestigious event. I was fishing through my wallet for the funds for another slab after the first one evaporated like water on a pool pavement in summer. Somewhere our stories had taken different prongs on that old fork in the road.
Chose To Be An Australian Legend.
Chose To Be A Nacho Cheese Enthusiast, Both Valid.
You don’t really start to feel like an underachiever until those your age start to achieve. Then, you may as well shrink back into your skin, because you are a million miles from where they are. Taylor Swift is my age and she is worth many millions of dollars. The problem may well be calculating your worth in dollars and cents.
You Mean Those Pieces of Metal I Give My Gardener, Who Is Worth That?!
When I was 13 I wanted nothing more than to be a gymnast. I tried super hard, did the presentation to the judges and studied technique. I thought about hitting the olympics, how it would impress everyone who ever shat on me, what I would be on those bars and rings. My teacher was a realist, and as I have since discovered a very possible alleged drug-dealer and steroid abuser, and told me how much I was shitting myself in no uncertain terms.
‘You’ll never be a gymnast, you are too old to start’
‘We’ll I’ll just train harder’ I protested.
‘No, these kids..’
He trailed off for a long moment, the way an early and just-discovering-females teen does at the sight of a nice round arse.
‘These kids are doing, they’re doing some stuff’
Then my dreams were sha…they were cracked. I never really wanted to be a gymnast. Like many of my goals I simply thought it would be cool. It took a while to surrender to writing, but that was a good first taste of where your age, or your lack of lack of it could take you. The adage ‘never too old’ fell pretty hard on it’s face.
But the fuel that drove the brief gymnastic fire still burns within me. No-one worth their salt has written a decent, or better yet, great, novel at 20. Most hit the writing stride closer to 30, it is the opposite bit of society. If an athlete is praised for their youth and stamina a writer benefits more from age and experience.
Luckily for me I never wanted to be a pop star or an athlete (gymnasts aren’t athletes, you guys, they are glorified dancers and nothing much more). I never wanted to be in movies or on television. Most novelists who wrote anything worth a damn were 30 or older when they did. And I only know that because I have read obsessively on the subject due to my crippling age-achievement complex. Also because I am insanely jealous.
The Dude Who Only Has Friend Readers Hates Me!? Does he at least like Nacho Cheese?
I am getting happier as I get older. I am getting more fulfilled with the writing I do and feel like I have finally written the bullshit out. Still, as I sit here justifying my own complex lack of achievement and pump my ego up, the television flickers, and Steve Smith (three and a half weeks older than me) has passed 200 for the first time.
NP.
No comments:
Post a Comment