Saturday 19 February 2011

Life begins at faulty

I wake. My pants are still on, meaning I probably wasn’t a sexual athlete last night – but I’ve taken the trouble of removing my socks, which suggests I may have tried to be one. As is usual for a Saturday morning, I wake with a slight hangover (weekend drinking will be a common theme in my posts, as sadly, so will hangovers), but it’s not a mind-numbingly bad one, and I’m confident a shower and strong coffee will shake it off. My long suffering, lycra covered girlfriend is bounding about our bedroom, preparing for her aerobics class, supplying me with further evidence that I clearly wasn’t a wild stallion last night, leaving her bereft of energy or  the ability to walk. 
I squint at my image in the large mirror at the foot of our bed, and to follow Roy Walker’s instructions, I would say I see a man who could certainly lose a few pounds (say 14), with greying hair, and way too much body hair, a kind of hairy not so attractive George Clooney who has really let himself go, or to put it in a Catchphrase  for Roy ‘Monkey Clooney-Wannabe’.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely out of shape, but have done virtually no exercise since before Christmas, whilst continuing to eat and drink like I have been. The cruel, taunting, hurtful cardboard disk that is my BMI calculator, tells me I’m in the overweight zone, and need to lose around a stone to get me back into the healthy weight category.  But if I’m honest (which I intend to be in this Blog) my concern is one of vanity rather than not being a healthy weight, as I approach the big 4-0, I’d like to try and make myself look better (yes, younger) and only having one chin might go some way towards achieving that. Of course, a nice side effect of losing weight, is that it will make me healthier, so everyone wins (my major organs do a little Mexican wave).
Which kinda brings me to the purpose of this Blog. I will be forty in less than a month, which has put me in a very reflective frame of mind, on what I have and haven’t achieved. My intention is to log how I will improve myself during my first year as a fortysomething, or in my case, a faultysomething (see what I did there). I am out of shape, have unfulfilled ambitions, am a cynical commitment phobe (I am unmarried without children or property of my own), drink more than is probably good for me, suffer from time-to-time with depression,  and am not always the greatest son/brother/boyfriend/friend to those I care about. I sometimes feel I am living my life as if I were still 25, which that mirror at the foot of my bed is clearly telling me, I am not.
I realise I’m sounding a little glass half empty here, I have many positive things, and achievements in my life, and am generally a happy person. I managed to graduate from university, move to London and get a job that I love and am proud of, and I am very lucky to have a wonderful supporting, understanding girlfriend, who manages to put up with living with my moods and grumpy old man/emotional teenager style of living, and who I’d be quite lost without.  I am blessed with good friends, who always put a smile on my face, and a loving family.
But improvements can be made, so I plan to get back into the exercise habit (even managed the gym after work and before the pub last night, which I am paying for now!) and have enrolled myself onto a creative writing course.
So dear readers (not that I have any yet) I pledge to keep you up to date on my progress, promise to be honest, share my thoughts, and maybe give you something to smile about (probably at my own expense)as I document the first year of, as I keep getting told, when my life begins, whilst trying not to sound like I’m having a mid-life crisis (although I am thinking about getting a tattoo).

1 comment:

  1. Hey Rob, well done on the blog - it looks great and I love the first post.

    Don't let anyone tell you tattoos are a mid life crisis - did I tell you I was Harley shopping recently?!!

    What creative writing course are you doing? Good luck with both - will be following with interest!

    Mel x

    PS 4 times at the gym this week for me. ahem, just saying
    PPS Not lost a pound though - anyone would think alcohol was full of calories

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