But it is fairly self explanatory. A person imagines taking the him or herself of a decade or two or three ago out for coffee and imparting wisdom, discussing all the ways in which the adult has changed from the child, teenager or 20-something and generally reflecting on life.
To be fair, not just a roof repair – even though I must note that what began as an apparent single slipped tile duly turned (as these things do, I shall point out to young Lucy so that she is early aware of this immutable but for some reason unrecorded in GCSE physics textbooks law and can start saving her Sainsbury’s Saturday girl wages accordingly), into the revelation that £7,500 worth of work was needed.
Three things, it turns out, is all it takes to undo me. Four, if you count the rat twice, which I do because mice are no picnic but a rat is… oh dear God.
What is going on? Where’s my resilience? How can I call myself a functioning adult if three things in a row is all it takes to reduce me to an anxiety-ridden wreck, rocking in a blanket on the sofa and muttering to myself as I stare at a blank spot on the wall and try not to hear the sound of men stripping felt and rotten battens above me, others wrenching out the boiler below me, or see in my mind’s eye that whiskered snout poking out of a warm bin as I tip the until-then-very-satisfactory results of half an hour’s weeding?
It is such a myth that you get tougher as you get older. It might in fact be a myth that you become better in any way as you get older. It’s not just the flesh that loses firmness and bounce but the mind and soul too and I don’t know what the equivalent of collagen supplements is that I can take to repair the damage to those vital organs.
One of the greatest gifts I have given my son is the ability to gossip
Read MoreMy fundamental affliction of course is one shared by most of us: the consciousness of being an adult in a godless universe. Every slipped tile, every funny initial knocking noise from a boiler (honestly – don’t ignore it. You know it’s nothing good already and it’s only going to get £800-1200 worse) is a reminder of our essential powerlessness. That the cosmos can throw anything it likes at us at any time and we have no defence. We and our loved ones just have to… stay lucky.
I’m sorry, I may have crossed streams there. But the principle is sound. I just don’t know who to call for repairs. My best bet is the lovely rat man, I suspect.
And that, young Lucy, is where we are.
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