One year older

Yeah Baby! 2005. I am so stoked about it. December was a little grey for me, some shitty stuff happened in December, or at least I thought it was shitty at the time. And I turned 24. Wasn't looking forward to that, didn't feel I've achived all I wanted to by this point in my life. To the way I think, 23 is still like being a teenager, one can be still exploring the world and yourself, carefree and living. Just living, doing stuff and enjoying it, still dreaming about 'adult' life. Life after 23. Career and crushing responsibility and mortgages and all that stuff. Getting a receding hairline. Writing a will. Damn.

So yeah. I was thinking in terms of a lot of negatives about age. And that's pretty dumb, but I was. Thinking about it, most of the people I know on this island who I find cool and interesting and enjoy spending time with - just for the sake of it - are a fair bit older than me. People who are still living and full of energy and keen to try new things. People with stories, because they've tried lots and lots of new things.

I still had a some negative self image things going on, a feeling of loss like I couldn't be a kid anymore. Sounds dumb when I read it written down, still one has got to acknowledge these things to work them out. And I think I've worked out what it is. In my life and the last two years of working bars I have spent time with so many half dead people. Old folks who can bash my ear for an hour while I nod my head and go ''mmm... yes... really....'' They'll be talking about some dog that the owners of the pub, 14 years and three landlords ago, used to have. Or about how they cant get used to new measurements (the currency changed in 1972 - 8 years before I was born - from old pounds to new pounds, some old folks dont like the new ones). Something very unimportant compared to the scale of a human life. People who will not talk positively about anything contemporary, especially if it's in the news. They want to tell you about how things should (ie, used to) be.

And then it happens. They notice I have an accent and then ask where I'm from. And I say 'Harare'. And then tell them it's in Zimbabwe. ''Oh, Rhodesia!'' they say, brightening up. Because I am a Young-Person, and I have A-Lot-To-Learn, and they now want to share their wisdom with me about what a mess 'the blacks' have made in 'Rhodesia' and how wonderful it used to be (under the apartheid of the Smith regime). Because as a young person, with such a lot lot to learn, I obviously know nothing about my own country, to which he's never been. And something I really hate, as an African, is racism. People putting down my african friends and countrymen in my presence is not cool.

I could say something sharp. There's no point, it won't do any good. So I just clench my toes and carry on with the head nodding. There's no reason to assert myself against a person like this, to try and change their view of the world. They're too scared of it. Changeing to them would mean letting go of the past. A person like this is intimidated by the timer on their VCR. That to me is what old means. To not want to change. To fall off the horse and not keep getting back on.

I am very, very afraid of getting old. The thought terrifies me.

And that's where I had it wrong. I'm never going to get old. I won't let myself. Sure, my body will age, time will pass, and that's fine. Because I will never give up wanting to live. I know that with a certainty. I think that people who let themselves be old, never had that desire to start with. They're bitter about life carrying on without them after they gave up on it. Which is why they won't say anything nice about the present, and are enthusiastic about the past, non-commital about the future.

I'm always going to want to change myself. To keep ahead of the times. And I have some great role models to spend time with. I know some excellent senior citizens who are younger than I am. People who will still rush off to Amsterdam to check out an art expo and smoke some weed. And boy do they have excellent stories. And in all the time they've spent, doing all this cool stuff and growing as people, they've learnt a lot about life the universe and everything, and I want to hear about it from them. They're not alone in a bar, talking at some bored foreign guy. They're out, living. And when that takes them to my bar, I want to talk to them.

These people don't say 'If I knew at your age...' or 'Back in my time...'. Because they don't have regrets, they learnt from their mistakes and the crap they were served, gained from it, and kept on living. And they're still doing it now, and the present is still 'their time'. And that's how I want to be :-). It's going to be pretty cool to have all those great memories to look back on, and all the stuff I think about more worked out.

And I can wait. There's going to be a lot I want to do between now and then. And I am really looking forward to it. It's going to be awesome. Starting............ Now. :-)