I’m Old. Face It.

My Dad’s 86. That’s proper old, right? He was playing tennis five years ago, trundling around the court like a mortally wounded rhino, but trundling nonetheless, hitting balls, competing hard, throwing his racket in frustration. It mattered. Now? Nothing matters except his failing health. Post open heart surgery and endless battles with the insidious poison of infirmity, his racket is permanently mothballed. He dodders about with a stick and talks almost exclusively about what hurts, what this doctor said, what that nurse did. I don’t blame him because he feels lousy. Nor do I hold it against him, even as I spend yet another Saturday night sitting in A & E for 7 hours while he’s mostly ignored – just another sick old man – then grudgingly examined by an earnest, bleary-eyed twelve year old junior doctor, and finally admitted for another two weeks of aimless tests and disjointed treatment. I love my dad. It’s not easy viewing.

Me? I’m 57. That’s not old. Relatively speaking. Except…nothing works like it used to, some of it not at all; I’m deaf, broken-kneed, bent over with back pain, near-toothless and struggling with anal fissures (too much info?). And I’ve kind of done everything I’m going to do – everything good, anyway – and now it’s just nothing on top of nothingness. I’m still a dad to my two daughters (20 and 22) though finance and accommodation aside, I’m increasingly irrelevant to them, and I’m still a husband to a wife who’s doubtless bored with – and sick of – me. And who can blame her?

Aside from the achievements of others, I’ve got very little to look forward to, especially as my beloved Spurs blew the only chance they’ll ever have during my lifetime to win something meaningful. I work, some of it, on the face of it, glamorous (I do voiceovers and write) but my exciting stand up/acting days are behind me (who wants to watch an old man trot out impressions of people either 30 years younger than him or…dead?) and I write novels that nobody reads.

There, how’s that for a sour opener? Surprised myself. Didn’t realise I was that miserable. And there’s so much more to come. Stay tuned.

Here’s my voiceover website if you can be bothered: www.purevoiceovers.com