Towards the end of my 50th year a young man stood to offer me his seat on the Tube and in an instant I realised I had aged. The signs were there: I was overcome with waves of nostalgia watching T2: Trainspotting and re-listening to Alanis Morrisette's Jagged Little Pill' on their 20th anniversaries. And at Glastonbury I found myself trying to sing Mary J. Blige songs to two teenage poppets who'd never heard of her, but who, in return, sang me snippets of One Direction songs they liked.
The trouble with ageing, I thought, as I realised that I'd now been alive in the world at least 30 years longer than the poppets, is that I seem to have less patience brought on by being in sight of the terminus, but fortunately also care less about the small stuff. K.T. Tunstall wandered into the massage tent she'd left an earring in the day before where I was naked except for my bonds knickers, and neither K.T. nor myself could give a rat's arse.
That kind of contentment is worth getting old for and if we can get through life causing as little damage to ourselves and others along the way, we've done alright. Scar tissue must never be allowed to accumulate, and 'if onlys' lightly collected, dusted off occasionally and then forgotten about at the back of a high shelf in a room seldom visited.
My deepest thanks to those who have travelled with me during various decades along the way, and the various posses over the last year of finding Wally.
