10 years on

I am sitting alone on a Saturday night and it got me thinking what did I used to do. Well ten years ago I was rarely in on a Saturday night or any other night for that matter. If it wasn't Karaoke or pub quizzing it was shuttling my then flat mate to his DJ gigs. Hasn't life changed?

In fact changed isn' t the description it is totally unrecognisable now. I barely drink, can't remember the last time I went out to a night club. Let alone got drunk and danced into the early hours of dawn. I couldn't physically do it to be truthful. I certainly couldn't do it in the shoes I used to wear, and I think if I tried to pull some of the dance moves I used to I would end up in hospital. In a way its quite depressing because I had a very full life with non stop activity, that on it is own meant I was skinnier and happier.

Yes I was still ill then, but I was stable enough to bounce back with ease. I had just had ear operation but with in 2 weeks I went back to work stitches still in my ear. Now I can't even work despite being mentally able to, because I am a health and safety risk on crutches, and I can't even carry my own coffee to my desk. Yet I still have to prove this fact to the welfare office as they think I can. Life was easier then, but then I was ten years younger.

They say youth is wasted on the young, I wouldn't be that harsh because at near 40 I am only recently feeling my age. I was able to be young for longer than most, but now it hurts more because I am not really getting to enjoy mid life. Instead I have jumped from youth to old age and nothing in between.  At times I move slower and less steady than some one twice my age. I bruise like I am made of china and the snaps and cracks of my joints wouldn't be misplaced in a slasher horror picture. Its made harder by the fact that all this stated 10 months ago and has progressively got worse.

When you think even 3 years ago I could get away with little to no sleep at events, now that idea is impossible, although when I sleep is up for debate. I could drink and not worry about being drunk, now I can barely do a couple of drinks on my medication. Its not a gradually intolerance to everything in my life so much as this sudden flare up has caused an entire lifestyle change. It is on par with walking into the GPs one day and being told everything you use to do is no more. Not just give up this and this, everything, everything you do, what you eat and what you do.

This isn't a whine or a moan but more a reflection on what has changed in the last year, and the answer is almost everything. That's the hard part of getting old.-