Wobble

Feeling very, very low tonight. I don't know why, but I let the Ciderman get under my skin, which is a predictably stupid thing to have done. But I don't often meet people I want to talk to, who interest me, who aren't 10 years older than me and married.

This evening I spent in the company of two nice couples - late 50s/early 60s. 20-odd years older than me, and reminding me with every shared joke, every sentence that they finish for each other that I will never have that. I will never grow old with a person by my side with whom I've spent the majority of my adult life, who is the father of my children, who remembers that disasterous holiday we had 30 years ago, who planned the house extention with me etc, etc.

But I'm back to the old problem, I'm too young to be old and too old to be young. While the 30-somethings cluster round the pub with friends, I realise I have none to do that with - they are all the old smug-marrieds. While any younger friends I have are having fun, I seem to be always refusing a pint in order to drive home. It's become ingrained over the last 25 years - its what I do.

The most wonderful, memorable weekend of my life was spent, 9 years ago at a music festival. It wasn't because the bands were great, although they were. It was because, after rushing to get there, after sorting out the kids, and making sure the shopping & washing was done, I dashed over to the campsite to wait for the next item on the checklist of things to do.....only for the realisation to dawn that there wasn't anything. I could just: put the car keys down, get myself a pint, dance in the sunshine and repeat - for the next 36 hours. It was revelatory. For a day and a half, I wasn't responsible for someone else, running children here, collecting them from there, organising stuff. It was the first time in my adult life I'd ever had that much time to myself. I was 31. 

Occasions since seem few and far between, which is why I feel I have turned into the most boring, prematurely-aged old bag known to mankind. Its like I know there's a life out there, but have no idea how to access it. How will I ever meet someone? This post is self-indulgent and whiny and I'm not even pre-menstrual, which is even more worrying, really.