It’s all relative
It is the daughter's birthday today.
It doesn't seem that long since a screaming little eleven pound bundle of poo and puke arrived to change my life forever, but then I started doing the maths.
Fuck me but she's nearly a middle aged woman now! What really startled me though is that as I said – it doesn't seem that long ago, yet she has been around for over half my lifespan.
When you think back to the days of childhood they seem impossibly long. After all you had to toddle around for four or five years, learning to walk and talk and all the other little necessities of life, and then there was school. School of course lasted for decades. A never ending stream of undone homework, grinding to school on the bike, learning crappy essays by heart, tortuous lessons on subjects that were of little or no use, and of course exam after exam. I reckon I spent about fifty of my teen years in school.
Then there was the freedom of college and later, the first job [which lasted ten days] and the subsequent jobs after that. There was the wimmin, the booze and the craic. Life just went on forever.
And then our K8 came along.
Somehow life pre-K8 seems to have been a hell of a lot longer than life post-K8, but in fact it isn't. She is now seven years older that I was when she was born!
I was always taught that time was a constant, or at least relative, but relative to the speed of light, so seeing as I rarely approach the speed of light I can safely say that it is a constant. An hour is an hour and a day is a day and always has been. But that is definitely not true. Without a shadow of a doubt, time speeds up as you grow older, which explains perfectly why our K8 was only born a few years ago.
I reckon that the year now is roughly only a quarter as long as it was half a century ago. School holidays used to last for months and months, but now the leaves are no sooner on the trees than they're falling off again. Herself asked me the other day how long it was since I left RTE and I said 17 years. And then thought to myself 17 years? It can't be. But it is. It seems like only three or four years ago, which would be right if time is passing four times quicker?
So here I am sitting on an express train, going ever faster into the unknown.
I suppose I'll be a Great Grandad in a month or two?
Completely off topic
Just been re-reading 'Good Foundations' and as usual found I'd missed something on first reading.
It happens that K8 the Gr8 shares the same birthday as myself and my daughter ie.St Swithins' day .
Happy birthday to your pride and joy and to mine
And a Happy Birthday to you and your pride and joy! Something in the water somewhere?
I'd forgotten that it's also the anniversary of buying this place. 51 years ago. Wow! [And there still isn't a single settlement crack. That's more than can be said about me.]
Here's what Shakespeare says about (male) babies and schooldays:
'At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow.'
I don't know if you sang woeful ballads during your romantic days Grandad – you keep that side of your past under wraps. Good luck with being a Great Grandad, whenever it happens. May there be no mewling and puking to disturb your dreams.
Of course you would have to quote one of those damned pieces I had to learn by heart [and have since mercifully forgotten]!
I did indeed do a lot of singing but that's what comes of being a member of a few contemporary/folk/traditional groups in my time. No ballads though [or if there were, they were fairly bawdy!]
Many happy memories, Grandad, congratulations and I hope there will be many more. Going to see our young son tomorrow, just a round trip of about 360 miles. He will be 43, married with a wonderful two year old daughter. Just does not seem so very long ago that he was eating sand from the beach. Life simply flies by when you reach a certain age. Sad, really, that when you are old enough to enjoy retirement, the actual time available appears to be so much reduced. Have to work harder at it.
You just reminded me of the first time our daughter saw the sea. She was grand until the first wave came in whereupon she ran screaming for the sand-dunes. Now she drives ambulances around like a lunatic without a bother on her.
Many happy returns to all celebrating. Time did seem very slow when we were nippers and maybe that's because when we were 5, a year was a fifth of our life. Now a year is only one 50th or 60th or 70th so you're right Grandad, it's all relative!
The weird bit is when you realise that something you thought happened only a couple of years ago, was in fact several decades ago.
Gawd, really!?
How tempus does freaking fugit; seems like just yesterday when I had adopted you and tried to steal K8 away from…well, all that.
I'm guessing that not only is your blog is moving along 3.00×108 m/s faster these days, but so are your memories. No worries, happens to us all. At least…as far as I can remember.
Many happy returns, K8.
I still have that adoption paper somewhere. I saw it only recently [thought that means probably about fifty years ago]. Maybe it will come in handy when the EU goes belly-up and I seek asylum across the pond?
According to Hawken, time is not linear, it is merely perceived as such by the human brain. But then he does talk a lot of bollocks sometimes.
(My daughter is 42 and oldest grandson 9 on Tuesday so I know how you feel)
Daughter is now 37 and eldest Grandson is 15. I was visiting the mob yesterday and as usual youngest Grandaughter just stared at me with her mouth open. I tried pulling faces and making silly noises, but still no reaction – just a blank and unblinking stare. As I was leaving she said the first word she has ever spoken to me. She suddenly raised her hand, waggled her fingers and spoke that word – "bye". Shows how much she wants me to hang around?
That's odd. I was sure I posted a comment on this thread yesterday evening. But then I thought that since I'd spent all day yesterday traipsing round Athens in 36° heat and then when I got home consumed a number of ice cold lagers, that in my state of tiredness and inebriation perhaps I'd omitted to hit the 'Post' button. So I just checked my 'Textarea Cache' thingy, and I did indeed post a comment. A load of drivel, as usual, but a comment nonetheless. It must be floating round the ether somewhere looking for somewhere to settle…
That is weirdness. There is no sign of it here, in my spam or trash. There's no record in my email either so you must have sent it to the wrong house! I even tried my Dickie Doubleday defences and you aren't stuck on the barbed wire there either.
Yes, it is odd, as I seem to recollect seeing the post go up, and the 'edit' countdown ticking over too, as I generally run a quick eye over my comments to see if I've committed any howler typos. Oh well, another mystery to add to the 'X' files. 🙂
Great grand children? I'm sure K8 wouldn't appreciate suggestions of that quite yet. 🙂
But you forget she's in a different time from me, where it goes a bit slower. It's at least a year or so in her time before she needs to start worrying.