Andrew Kay: Another Year Older

Age is merely a state of mind – and my mind is in a state

So here it is, the last knockings of my fifties, one more final year of being fifty something before the big six zero. And what a decade it has been.
I wish I could say that it has been a good one and perhaps in many ways it has. There were certainly high points, big ones, and lows too, deep ravines that have left gaping scars in my world, some of which will never heal. I’m sure I am not alone in that, experience carries a very sharp knife indeed and cuts to the bone when it chooses to do so.

But the highs – such highs, so many ambitions achieved, so many people who showed trust in me and in what I do. To all of you, and I hope that you know who you are, I send my heartfelt thanks.
And there is so much more that I still have to do, so many ideas buzzing around the gluey beehive that is my brain. I know that many of you will have created a bucket list, that wonderful collection of things and ideas that you would like to see achieved before, well let’s say before too long, there are too many cliched bucket references that I could call into play at this point.
My bucket is not so much a list as a slop bucket, a primordial swamp of stuff, such raggedy stuff, that bobs about in there until something surfaces and materialises into something of substance.

“My bucket is not so much a list as a slop bucket, a primordial swamp of stuff”

Of course not all substances are good and quite a lot of the stuff that emerges from my swamp has to be stamped on or burnt before it reaches creative puberty, let alone maturity. It really is a good thing that only I can see in there.
Some of it though, I do want to see emerge, I won’t claim butterfly-like, or moth even, but emerge to take on life.

I need to do all this, it’s what makes me tick. That said I also need to try and slow down a little, pace myself. It’s what all of my friends tell me; “Slow down Andrew, take it easy, get some rest.” The concern is heartening to be sure and I am grateful, even though I don’t always seem so. The truth is that I cannot slow down, there is a terrible fear that if I slow down I will stop. I know that it is irrational, and I know that last year it saw me hospitalised for four very scary days too. Funnily enough I have yet to recycle that experience into something more positive, but I will, I am sure of that.

Anyway, this Thursday is my 59th birthday and I would like to ask you all a favour. Many happy returns would of course be nice, well for me at least. No, what I want is permission to carry on carrying on. Yes, just like the classic British movie comedies, that will do for me for sure.
A few weeks ago I proved just that. I had been poorly whilst in Vancouver and a couple of days without eating left me a tad slimmer.

The morning I felt better
I met my lovely friend Ms R in the hotel lobby. She had been very kind bringing me drinks and the like and was, I think, glad to see me up and better – glad until I stood and started to walk across the lobby. After a few paces my now baggy trousers simply fell to the ground. It was a comedy moment to be sure and a great way to head into the last year of my fifties – graceless, bare bummed and typically Andrew Kay.

Follow me: @latestandrew