I always pop up around this time of year to ask how the last year’s been for everyone. But I’ve been asking that question for ten years now—first of the Word Massive, then the Afterworders—so, let’s look back a bit further this time.
How’s the last decade been for you? My story’s in the comments. Tell me yours.
Hx
My life now is unrecognisable from the one I had ten years ago.
Ten years ago, I was pregnant (not that I’d realised that yet) and in a very unhappy marriage (I was horribly aware of that one). I was working as an IT trainer and not particularly enjoying it. I had the sensation that my life was in limbo, that I was—to quote Colin Hay—“waiting for my real life to begin”.
Today, I am happily divorced. Even better than that, these days I am blissfully living in sin with a lovely, lovely man (who I met through this very site). We have four kids between us; I always loved my two girls, but the joy of being a step-mum to two amazing bonus kids is an absolute revelation. Plus! We rehomed a little dog at the beginning of the year, and she’s bought more love into our lives than I ever imagined possible.
These days, I work as a writer and (occasionally) a musician. There’s still plenty of stresses in life—there always is—but these days they feel manageable rather than utterly overwhelming. I hope all is well with you too.
Hx
Very glad to read all this – so happy that you have come through such a difficult situation. All the best for Christmas (and the next ten years).
I agree with Ruby! Lots of love to you and yours, Hannah!
Absobloodylutely. 🙂
Thank you Ruby and Colin, and the same to you both xx
Fantastic !
Blimey. Ten years? Well, ten years ago I was a couple of years into a new job following a career switch to save my sanity but a couple of years away from starting the best relationship of my life. The relationship is sound, the job not so secure, but we keep on keeping on. The good greatly outweighs the bad and I’m lucky to have what I’ve got.
Last ten years
I was in a job I loved, then over the years the place changed luckily got redundancy two years ago. Very happy.
Got married in my 59th year.
Started a new job this year in my 62nd year.
Hurrah
Ten years ago I was not a grandparent, I am now.
As the parents both work, my wife and self do quite a bit of the heavy lifting.
After school, feeding, watering, bathing and general dicking about.
But its much more rewarding than I ever thought it would be…the oldest is fast approaching adolescence and I am constantly lending and retrieving my CDs from him….at the moment its Aerosmith, AC/D.C.,Montrose etc….sadly I guess his tastes will expand.
Through their afterschool TV tastes I have discovered a love of The Regular Show and The Amazing World of Gumball….cannot stand Adventure time though.
Due to a rediscovered love of cycling and giving up the tabs and heavy drinking I am (surprisingly) healthier than 10 years ago…..I do not own anything lyrcra.
Ten things for ten years:
1. Very amicably divorced, just about to become pregnant in a pretty new relationship.
2. Had a baby.
3. PhD started and finished 4 years later; left university teaching in a redbrick but kept up my OU work. Published some papers.
4. Started another degree.
5. Started a job I loved but was unmanageable with a small child; left that job.
6. Serious illness of very close family members x2; son diagnosed with additional needs.
7. Volunteering now- zero money but very happy with the role.
8. Loss of two very close friends.
9. Settling into a predictable and comfortable life which I have no right to complain about but is occasionally testing. I need a challenge once in a while. Or an adventure (see ‘own worst enemy’, below).
10. Got my mental health back into something I would call ‘very manageable’, which is a relief. Despite being my own worst enemy I at least realise my self-sabotage (that took about 30 years, not 10).
Despite all that (or maybe because of it) I feel….fine, actually. I bounce back better than I think. I’m ready for the next couple of years in which- ridiculously, no surely not, wait WHAT?- I turn 50 and might finally grow up. 🙂
Growing old is mandatory.
Growing up is optional
(I’m 48 next year (how did that happen?) and have no intention of (properly) growing up)
‘Growing up is optional’- OK, right, now, no-one told me this. That puts a different spin on things.
That’s very wise, Rigid. T-shirt?
I don’t mind admitting that I struggled a bit with 50 (my age since March) which surprised me because 30 and 40 didn’t bother me at all. I kept on doing the sums in my head and thinking, ‘That can’t be right. Perhaps there’s some kind of appeals procedure I can investigate?’ I got over it soon enough.
Yes I feel the same. 30 I sailed through, 40 I didn’t notice (I had a baby, I barely knew what day it was). But 50 is bothering me a bit, I think because you really ARE over half way done. It’s a cliche but I don’t feel anywhere near 50, or how I thought I might feel (or be) at 50. A uni friend of mine turns 50 in 2018 -naaah, surely it was only a couple of years ago that we were eating toast in your kitchen, hungover at 6am after a night dancing?
I have to admit though this year is the first time that I’m physically feeling middle age. I can’t do what I once did re: exercise; tired more easily; things hurt a bit more, in weird places (fingers, feet). And skin! Why does no-one tell you? Everything moves south, from face to knees. Wrinkly knees! Bloody hell. It’s funny; these days you can do a lot to stave off the passage of time if you so wish, but your hands and knees give you away.
I don’t feel anywhere near 50 either… ;-(
Wrinkly knees! Sellotape is your friend.
wrinkly knees ? Isn’t that the specialty of @Disappointment_Bob ?
wrinkly knees ? Isn’t that the specialty of @DisappointmentBob ?
He says it was shadows cast on his jeans. He says.
I’m fitter than I was a couple of years ago, but that’s because at The Light’s suggestion we go to a weekly boxercise class. It’s not boxing, or even sparring, just pads and gloves to get the upper body involved. We’re getting each other our own pads and gloves for Christmas, or at least buying them next week assuming there are some bargains in the sales, so we can avoid that sensation of slipping your fist into someone else’s sweaty boxing glove at the gym (there’s probably a German compound noun for that sensation).
Though that does mean that the creaky knee I’ve had since an over ambitious gym session in my twenties needs a support, the brand new twinge of tennis elbow has to be monitored – did I mention my varifocals, the tinnitus and a bald patch which can be seen from space? Even in better shape there are physical sides to aging which I could do without.
Hubes, there are things called ‘frownies’ for the face i.e. industrial-strength Sellotapte that you can apply to frown lines, as the name suggests. I see a use for my knees….
Gatz yeah I have a pretty good level of physical fitness (I love boxing, too! I am teaching my son to kickbox) but there are just some physical things that are almost inevitable (and in a woman’s case, absolutely inevitable). More generally, creaky left knee here, mild sciatica since having a baby, varifocals blah blah….so I definitely think one can maintain a very good level of physical fitness, but we have to be sensible. No more step aerobics for me! *puts away legwarmers*
And now matter how fit you are, or how much muscle you have, skin sags.
Frownies, may have to invest.
My usual wrinkle treatment of 4 to 1 of sand and cement is no longer having the desired affect.
2007 – in a job that was causing me a great deal of stress and ‘is this as good as it gets’ disappointment. That developed into a period of real depression for a couple of years. Took a voluntary redundancy at Christmas 2011. Started writing a book about John McLaughlin really as something to do (a few months cash in the bank) and as a way to try and get my confidence back. It worked.
2017 – I still find myself writing books about John McLaughlin. But in the intervening period I’ve written a few others and got thoroughly back into labour-of-love CD reissue projects around several artists, music making/releasing (though I may now be played-out) and academic proofreading (and occasional music book proofing), which I enjoy. I no longer have to work in open plan offices with dysfunctional people, being treated like a primary school pupil, which largely characterised the final year of my previous job. Hell really is other people, in some circumstances, in my experience. I’m very lucky to have found a portfolio of activities that I enjoy and that are sufficiently remunerative, with room for some fun and artistic pursuits.
This past year, I’ve had enough spare cash to try and help some musicians in a band that caught my attention towards an album release and associated activities. That process has been interesting. Dysfunction is not solely found in offices. The one surviving member of the trio and I (with new members in place since the album recording) are now looking forward to its release in January and a growing number of quality gig bookings and media opportunities in 2018 and plans for tours in Britain and Europe. It may take a while to my investment back but it’s nice to be in a position to help and it feels like an adventure. So things are pretty good!
Ten years ago, I think I was just coming to the end of a short term contract, doing a job that was interesting but not very well paid. I was living in a flat in a not particularly nice part of town with an old mate who was slowly doing my head in. I’d been seeing the future-Mrs Wilson Wilson 6 months and plans were afoot to move in together. I was playing in three bands simultaneously and spent most of my spare time either in sweaty rehearsal rooms or at gigs.
Now? Married, babies, mortgage. Still working in the same place (albeit in a different job) and for the most part still interested in what I’m doing. Paid far better than I was, but still not as much as I’d like/hope/think I deserve (hopefully this is changing soon). The last band fell by the wayside last year, and I’d like to get back to playing at some point although I really don’t have the time at the minute.
It’s all been good, relationship probably stronger than it’s ever been and the babies are a constant source of surprise and delight, although I’m permanently knackered. I still find myself –
at the age of 40 – occasionally surprised that I’ve become a grown-up!
2007: I had been a year at a job with a non-govt organisation that treated its workers fairly well, part of a small design team working with an unpredictable but manageable editor and marketing team. I was two years into a band that was a real democracy. Engaged and five years into living in a small flat in South London. Tired but happy.
2017: The job got worse and worse. The only good thing was the pay. People got more and more unstable, up to and past the ‘batshit’ stage. A new CEO came in and said all references to ‘journalism’ should be replaced with ‘content’. This January, after 11 years, I jumped ship. I’m freelancing – it’s much more interesting, but seat-of-the-pants financially. Married in 2009 (long overdue) and we’re still together and happy: this is my greatest blessing. My band is no longer a democracy and we only play to a handful of faithful friends most of the time. My parents are now frail, my Dad with a host of pains, my Mum with the same, and worsening dementia. I sleep a lot less, or less well, possibly because I drink a bit too much (my only remaining vice) but mostly worries.
I don’t know if I’m happy or not. Ask me in another 10 years.
Whew. It’s been… quite a ride.
In December 2007, I was a month away from the birth of my younger daughter; my elder had just passed the 18-month mark; I was in my…what? fourth year of a teaching career which I was beginning to get good at and enjoy, after 3 years of properly intense work, self-doubt and stress. I was incredibly tired. Bone weary, constantly.
But the delight of new parenthood was everything back then: my little blonde curly-topped sweetheart had woken up a love in me that I didn’t know was possible. So intense, so all-consuming. And that’s just grown and grown and grown in the decade since. My girls are such an intense source of love and happiness: the centre of my life. Plus, they’re really kind – really just immensely good people, who will go out of their way for others without a second thought – something that they manage while at the same time being nobody’s pushover. Less importantly, but still superbly, they’re also really funny and really clever. They’re going to be fine, my girls. Whatever mistakes I’ve made in life, they’re something I’ve been a part of that is an unalloyed good.
Looking back, however, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the birth of my girls was a band-aid over a marriage that wasn’t OK, even then. We didn’t fight, and we didn’t abuse each other, and all was calm. To slightly adapt Tolstoy, every happy marriage is alike; every unhappy marriage is unhappy in its own way. But my joy in my babies helped me ignore that growing unhappiness for another 9 years. Over the last five, it grew from a nagging sense that things weren’t OK into a fully-fledged realisation that I had to do something.
Other than the girls, my other great blessing has been new friends and a new lease of creativity. Without this place, and its predecessors, I wouldn’t have met a whole bunch of you, a good few of whom I’m delighted to be able to call real friends, in real life. One of those friends is Katy, my bandmate. Being one half of The Disappointment Choir has been a huge thing for me, a real privilege, and continues to be. And the nice thing is that, when we started, Katy and I were acquaintances who played music together. Over the years – and it’s taken time, because neither of us is easy to get close to – we’ve become genuine and close friends. We had a little dinner out the other night to celebrate a brilliant 2017, and we both said how great it is to be as close as we have become. She’s awesome.
Other things: about seven years ago, I had my first formal diagnosis of a mental health problem which I’d been trying to explain away and deal with alone for my whole adult life. It was bipolar, originally. Certain patterns of behaviour seemed to fit that category, though both me and the docs have since been satisfied that it’s actually recurrent episodes of garden-variety major depression. I’ve had a few really nasty attacks of the black dog since. This time last year, I was just getting towards the bottom of the downward slide into the worst I’ve ever had.
The breakdown led to my being off work for a couple of months and having maybe 10-15 daily little planning meetings with myself about how to die. A change in medication changed everything, and as I clambered wearily back out of the pit, I found that I couldn’t do the marriage thing any more. I finally said the words, and it was done.
A week later I lost my job. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: technically it was my decision, but really what it was was them coldly solving an inconvenience. I still get twinges of FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING CUNTS every once in a while, but really they did me a favour. I hated that job, and everyone who knows me knew it. I was never built to be the boss. And now I get to do the good part, the part that got me promoted out of it in the first place because I’m good at it: teaching.
That was nine months ago, and I’m conscious that it sounds like I’m trying to convince myself when I say that I haven’t been this happy for years and years. But it’s true. I’m not lying to anyone any more: not lying about my marriage, not lying about wanting that idiot career. It’s a tremendous weight off.
I’m 40 in a month. Here’s to a new decade, kids.
Oh, and speaking of my band, I realised with a shock this morning that it’s exactly four years today that we put our first record out. Still really proud of it: recorded on a MacBook with one mic and no studio time at all. It’s decidedly DIY, but I love it. 🙂
Four years between albums? Who do you think you are, the bloody Stone Roses?
Ha! Three and 3/4. 😉
Just as long as neither of us has our Seahorses phase…
Coincidentally someone said on 6Music this pm that The Seahorses is an anagram of He hates Roses – Deliberate or accidental?
I preferred the Shirehorses.
I preferred the red roses of Lancashire, particularly the Gillette Cup winning line-up of Lever, Lloyd (CH), Pilling and Bond.
As someone who is doing a load of Mac recording currently, could I ask how you ended up distributing your home-recorded material? Any information sharing on this topic would be appreciated. Probably deserves a thread of its own.
Oh sure, it’s easy enough.
Step 1 is to make sure your mixed audio files are a minimum of 44,100khz bitrate / 16bit bit depth (often referred to as 16/44). Depending on what DAW you’re using, there may be a “CD quality” export preset, which comes to the same thing.
For the first album and the follow-up EP we used a combination of Bandcamp and CDBaby – CDBaby being a digital distributor who handle delivering your stuff to Apple Music, Spotify etc. Bandcamp is by far the best deal for artists and consumers but has, obviously, far less market penetration and exposure.
For our second record, which was much less DIY, we distributed again with Bandcamp, but this time switched our streaming/download distributor to Tunecore. No noticeable difference, I’ve got to say. Tunecore is a bit slicker, but their pricing model is less one-off.
Tunecore and CDBaby require files at 16/44 quality, no more and no less. Bandcamp require that as a minimum, but we upload in 24/96 so as to give any of our audiophile fans the option of mega-high-quality if they want it.
Bandcamp don’t charge you upfront but they take a (very reasonable) slice of your sales. If you give your music away free, they don’t take a penny.
Tunecore and CDBaby both charge an upfront and perfectly affordable fee. Tunecore is slightly cheaper upfront but you pay yearly, whereas CDBaby keep your stuff up in the stores forever or until you tell them to take it down.
If you wanted to go physical, I’d highly recommend The Disc Factory for CDs. As a one-off for this record we also did a short-run vinyl pressing with Mobineko. Very happy with them, but we will lose shitloads of money on the vinyl. We did it purely for our (my) joy.
Thanks. Lots for a sometimes technophobe to investigate, with a little help from me friends …
Feel free to drop me a DM if you’d like some help, Tahir. The tech/production side of music is something I adore and am good at, and I’d be delighted to help if I can. 🙂
2007. Left well paid job in Dubai for a decade’s freelancing in Berlin
Three long term relationships, all ending sourly
Currently with a wonderful person with lots of “she’s the ONE” feelings
Watched print media jobs dry up and evolve into provision of ‘content’
Got into creating ‘content’
Got stage 3 colorectal cancer
Had chemo for 6 months. Never again (I hope)
Recovered from cancer
Got a dachshund.
Got diabetes.
Still, life’s not bad at all. And altho I don’t blog here too often, I have checked in nearly every day of the past 9 or so years. Happy Xmas everyone!
In April 2018 the company I work for moved our R&D from Connecticut to here in Texas. At the time I was still very much single without too much care of what tomorrow brought. Kind of wanted a relationship but wasn’t looking very seriously. Certainly not interested in having kids.
I am now happily married 7+ years, have a 5 year old boy who is the world to me, and an extended family here in the U.S. that I love to bits. How the hell did that happen!!??
Probably best ten years of my life. New wife, new country. My job got increasingly boring and bureaucratic to the point where for the first time ever I hated every Monday. Then 4 years ago I was made an offer re early retirement. I played Mr Cool for oh, five seconds, then a hand was bitten off.
Due to some poor advice, and trying to do the right thing, I signed away half my pension to first wife (who of course married someone rich – me, bitter?) so we have to watch the pennies these days. But one of the great joys of retirement is realising you don’t need stuff, an old raincoat never lets you down and living in The Land Of Wine is pretty damn good.
Oldest son is trying to extricate himself from the clutches of a completely bonkers French woman. 7 year-old grandson seems to be sailing through the related emotional upheavals and brings us unconfined and unrestrained joy.
Listening to less music these days but reading lots and I am halfway through my first proper novel which is bound to be a smash. I have already decided Scarlett Johansson will play my femme fatale in the movie spin-off but I will obviously need to be hands-on with her.
Lady W is quite simply the most amazing woman I have ever met even though she still plays Rumours once a week.
Ten years ago I was coasting in a middling job within the insurance industry, trying to stay in the black, worrying about the state of the world and nursing unrealised creative ambitions with an insidious air of defeatism.
Now I’m coasting in a middling job…. within… the insurance… noooooooooo!! Where did the decade go!
2007:
I’d been separated for 18 months and in a morass. The first relationship I’d tried since then had crashed and burned and burned me. I was 18 months into a new job I had yet to make my mind up about. Son was 3 1/2.
2017:
Sharon and I are engaged and will be married in April. She is absolutely the best thing to happen to me and is my partner in every way. Chris is 13 now; he lives 6 hours away and we communicate every day by Facetime. I’m convinced that Steve Jobs gave me a better relationship with my son than I would otherwise have had. I am a partial owner of an adopted dog, Hope, who rounds out our little family unit. I’m also doing my best to find another job since our recent takeover. On the whole, things are better and looking better.
2007
I was twenty-one. I had just graduated from university, having spectacularly managed to screw up my degree. To this day, I don’t know if it happened because of my mental state, or my mental state was a result of my failure. Whatever it was, the only things I took from those three years was a couple of close friends, a huge debt and a bigger music collection. I couldn’t drive and I couldn’t get laid.
Of course, I had to find myself a job. I was looking for a job, and then I found a job (eventually) – working temporarily for Nipper over the Christmas period. This soon led to a full-time position working like a dog, for a dog. The staff discount card was put to good use, and my music collection grew again. The people who worked there at the time were, and continue to be incredible friends.
2017
I am thirty-one. I have a different job, which is more professional, but lacking in imagination and excitement. I am living in a one-bedroom flat, eager to move out and get a proper house. I can drive, even though I don’t particularly enjoy it. I have a different job, which is more professional, but lacking in imagination and excitement. My music collection continues to grow.
I am getting married in May 2018 and I am looking forward to it immensely (I have already written my speech and tweaked it about fifteen times). Luckily Harry and Meghan have agreed not to upstage our wedding.
2007 (December 20th) – I was 43, and had less than a week before the painful break up of a relationship that left me without my partner and stepdaughter, and my 6 year old daughter without her step mum and stepsister. The conversation with my daughter remains the most heartbreaking of my life – ‘L and G are moving out’ (I put it better than that, really) ‘No they’re not. They’re not. They’re not!!’
2017 (December 20th) Daughter is 16, and is midway through a band rehearsal at a studio nearby. She’s in the first year of 6th form and is the light of my life, though I’ll be absolutely fine when she leaves for Uni/gap year in 2019. Yeah right…
At 53, I feel the best I’ve ever felt. Until very recent times, I lived on adrenaline, but now there’s a balance to my energy. I love my work, psychotherapy, and feel such a privilege at being alongside humanity in all its shades. Then again, as with all other work I’ve ever done, I’m utterly self-employed, so there’s no holiday/sick pay, no security. Having said that, a crucial realisation/admission of the past decade has been that I may be a sole trader in work, but I thrive on close connection and company. I’ve been in a great relationship for the last two and a half years – there’s a grown up dialogue that I didn’t partake in when I was younger, and I have to say the sex is far better than anything from those adrenaline days.
So thank you Hannah for starting this thread!
Psychotherapy- CBT, IPT, DIT?
Integrative. My original training was psychodynamic, though I’ve since done courses in CBT, TA and several other models, most recently Lifespan Integration, a very different approach to dealing with trauma and dissociation. What I’ve come to realise is that it’s the relational element, the intersubjectivity of therapist and client, where the progress is made.
CBT myself. Now in an IAPT team, although I trained 15 years ago.
Similar time to when I trained. Happy with it?
Very much so. As I mention further down I’m lucky to work in a great team. The workload is very tough, a lot of complex presentations and targets to meet. But making people’s lives a bit better makes it all worthwhile. That and the laugh we have with each other.
Everything’s changed and yet nothing’s changed, it seems.
2007 – Went to Glastonbury for the first time! Kids were at school/university, I was halfway through a job that would end in redundancy two years later and I was probably spending more time than I should posting on this website or its predecessor.
2017 – Went to Glastonbury for the tenth time! Over the last ten years both kids have grown up and married, I’ve lost a father but gained a grandson (and a dog), and I’ve spent most of the last ten years in a job that has slowly got away from me, ending up with me leaving it a couple of weeks ago to face an uncertain future in the New Year. The Mrs W of 2007 is still the Mrs W of 2017, and hopefully will be forever more. Life has got in the way of me posting here, but hey, got a bit more time on my hands now…
Ten years ago, we (me and my wife) were travelling all over the world as tour guides. We don’t travel as far now but we still guide.
I’ve had a few family bereavements, got cancer from which I’m currently free, decided last year that flying to the far side of the world with coachloads of tourists and then having to be nice to them once we got there was no longer for me.
We went on a two month trip around South America, Antarctica & the Falklands earlier this year. Travelling to the far side of the world with my wife and being nice to her when we get there comes a lot more naturally). It was fabulous.
We both have more ailments: my wife had an operation for a long term back problem and the jury is out as to whether it’s worked; I’ve been diagnosed with emphysema which I didn’t accept and a spirometry test proved that I was right so the experts are looking to see what else it might be.
We’re off to Ireland in January for work and a holiday followed by Madeira for our 25th anniversary in February. We are also hoping to get to India before 2018 is out.
As far as work goes, all my tours are in the British Isles and Europe next year which is all I want nowadays.
Reading back, it looks very “Woe is Me” but not at all – my life has been pretty good over the last ten years and I’m looking forward to what comes next. I’ve left one company that I no longer enjoyed working with and I’m starting with another one next year.
You know some of my story and I have also shared some with the good people here too.
10 years ago I was living in upstate New York with my wife and one year old daughter. The job there ended unexpectedly in 2009 and we returned to Canada (I had moved here to be with my then girlfriend in 2005). My wife had a miscarriage in 2010. I was unemployed at the time. I then desperately took a work contract in Switzerland in 2011 as money was running out, went to a couple of Word events in London in that year (including the cruise on the Thames). For various reasons our marriage ended at that time.
I came back to Canada (Toronto) for my daughter and have remained here ever since. In 2013 I moved to Ottawa for work purposes and a couple of years later my ex and daughter moved much closely to me (now just over an hour away). since 2011 I went through near alcoholism, depression and a brush with death (due to a reaction against medication I was taking for Crohn’s Disease).
For the last couple of years I have concentrated mostly on spending as much time as I can with my daughter and rebuilding a sort of friendship with my ex. Also a change of lifestyle, eating better and I took up running. In January I finally become a Canadian citizen. A new beginning at 55? We’ll see.
As one who has tried, and to the most part failed, can I say how much I respect the attempt to build a positive relationship with your ex? Mine veers from being very needy to me thinking I need to hire bodyguards…
Cheers for that. It has taken a while, from pretty much the lowest of lows. Really it’s for the sake of our daughter, obviously she is the best thing to have ever happened to both of us so we do have something pretty big in common.
Yes, yes, yes. I work so hard to keep things amicable with my ex. My parents were vile to each other after they divorced and it was horrendous. People ask me how I can be nice to him after everything he’s done and I tell them, it’s not for his sake, it’s for the girls.
10 years of plodding.
Same house, same job, same Mrs D (and why would I want any other?).
Just fewer teeth.
Really feel like it’s time to change the job thing – but, having done 30 years (Apprentice / Planner / Project Mange/ Business Mngr / Project & Function Controls), I do wonder how “transferrable” my skills are (plus I’m at that age where accrued Pension becomes a consideration).
Voluntary Redundancy was available a couple of years ago, but I felt it was the wrong time, so carried on “plodding”.
Post-redundancy option, the restructuring has placed me in a role which I feel really unsuited to (not everyone is a “People Manager” – some work best on their own, and for the good of lots of people (not just your Team). Yes, I can do it, just the admin side lets me down.
(Plus the income allows me to but more CDs for which I have no storage space left.
Mrs D: Surely you don’t want any more music
Me: Sorry, I’ll ask the bands to stop releasing new stuff)
48 next year – I’m either about to have, or am in the middle of a Mid-Life Crisis, where I just “think” I could be doing so much better.
13 years ago I was coming out of an annus horribilis, having split up with a partner in very acrimonious circumstances after 8 years, having just lost my Mum to Alzheimer’s, and having barely got over the death of my Dad a couple of years previously. Then I met the current Mrs Bungliemutt, and haven’t looked back, or been happier than I’ve been in the last 10 years.
Jobwise, I’m still more or less doing what I was doing 10 years ago, sometimes hating it (more often than not), occasionally having a purple patch when it all gels together, as it’s doing now. I’m one of life’s committed under-achievers, saddled with a terminal lack of self-belief. But now looking forward to retirement, tinged with fears about getting old and everything that that entails. On the downside my arthritic hips have become much worse, and mobility is now suffering badly, although still not enough for me to conquer my morbid fear of surgery in order to have something done about it. 10 years ago I was fell walking in the Lakes. Now I can just about walk as far as the post box.
On the whole, it’s been a good 10 years, but not a day goes by when I wonder where the hell they went, and why did it happen so quickly.
We’d just adopted out two boys, brothers then 4 and 6.
The first few years were hard. Big problems with the youngest one (not his “fault” , his early years did for him.) Two local authorities couldn’t work out who were responsible for support so it took much longer than it should have to get help. This help finally came and helped the four of us stay together.
Much fun and more tribulations over the next few years. Now they’re well into their teenage years and for the youngest some issues are re-emerging. So we’ve got a Social Worker back in our life….grrrr.
But they are both generally happy and I think we’ve done pretty well really. Mind you, me and the wife are knackered!
I often think adoptive and foster families are about the finest people alive. Massive respect, Mr Steady.
Thank you Sir.
I’ll tell you one thing. Foster Carers . Troopers. All that care and then just moving them on. Hats off.
True dat.
Catastrophic.
Lost my Dad.
Lost my Mum.
Lost my home.
Lost my beloved.
On the other hand.
I’ve met some extraordinary people many of whom have become much loved friends.
Made a lot of paintings.
Friends & paint. That’ll do.
Wassail folks.
Ten years ago I moved to London for a woman.
Readers, I married her. Two children, four and one. We all abide. Family life is more squabbly than the couple life, but we have responsibilities and we seem to be, remarkably, still in love. We even bought a flat.
Work is precarious in that I left a media staff job to be freelance. Only had a couple of bad years work wise, but I am aware that career development doesn’t happen to freelancers and that I am a touch nervous about the future.
But the past decade has been a mostly joyous rollercoaster. I have barely noticed it go by… My thirties were far batter than my twenties. My forties are proving interesting.
Wassail upwards, Peter, wassail onwards x
Ten years ago I had just walked out on 23 years of marriage and was living in a flat in a former mill. My new girlfriend was up from Dover for Christmas and things were great.
The following year she was pregnant – it was very difficult. We were told our child (the first for both of us) wasn’t going to make it. He did, thankfully.
We got married and moved to our current home.
2012 her mum died.
2013 cancer – me, surgery and chemo.
2014 brain hemorrhage – her, followed by frequent seizures.
2014 her dad died.
2015 my mum died.
later that year she decided I was evil, compiled dossiers on me, reported me to social services, doctors, police. She went back to Dover frequently, pretending to work in her old job (HMRC). She went to Canada, without telling us, where she had another seizure and was effectively deported. She tried, unsuccessfully, to get me convicted for assault. I returned the favour a fortnight later – I was successful and she was cautioned.
She tried to leave town – for Dover- with our son. Thankfully social services and his school intervened. After many court sessions – most of which she didn’t attend, despite instigating the first, my son lives with me. She calls him a couple of times a week, has met up with him twice since March 2016. I’m taking him down to stay with her in Dover on New Years Day – first time since July.
All pretty traumatic really.
Thankfully I am in love with my first love – rekindled through Facebook. I am back with the girl I was with in 1979! It’s complicated, but it’s also spectacular. My son loves her and the feeling is mutual.
Sorry to go on. Thanks for ‘listening’.
Have a great big manly hug and a very sincere Happy Christmas brother.
Man, BAD, what a rollercoaster. Big love, man. Hoping for less interesting times for you over the next decade.
Christ mate. Best of luck from now on.
thanks, all – it was when I was living in the flat ten years ago, that I first joined the Word website, I guess I’ve checked in most days since then. I’d like to send heartfelt wishes for a merry Christmas to all.
Thanks for sharing. And keep on keeping on.
Have a very merry Christmas and happier new years from on.
That’s not a life – it’s an Eastenders storyline (except with a happy ending). Have another hug
Wow- a rollercoaster indeed. Pleased things are better now. Have a great 2018 !
I feel a bit/very humbled by all the life experience detailed above – I have this loose filling and I’m a bit worried about the state of the roof/gearbox, but…..very conscious that my veneer of comfort is just that. We are all on borrowed time…
Interesting that some of the contributors I thought were somewhat older than me turn out to be considerably younger and had a more hard-knock life, so I feel even less inclined to raise an eyebrow at their musical taste. Up to a point…
” I’d be innocent officially, but that’s a big word – innocence. Stupid’s more like it. Well, everybody is somebody’s fool. The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old, so I guess I’ll concentrate on that. Maybe I’ll live so long that I’ll forget her. Maybe I’ll die trying.”
You are moving on a crowded street
Through various shades of people
In the summers harshest heat
A story in your eye
Well, speak until your minds at ease
Ten years come and gone so fast
I might as well be dreaming
Sunny days have burned a path
Across another season
A fortune rises to the sky
Ten years come and gone so fast
You are driving down an empty road
Beside a shady river
When the sky turns dark as stone
The trees begin to shiver
The grace of God is nigh
Ten years come and gone
And that flash has never been forgotten
Sunny days have burned a path
Across another season
How do the powerless survive
Ten years come and gone so fast
And if you look into your future life
Ten years from this question
Do you imagine a familiar light
Burning in the distance
The love that never died
Ten years come and gone so fast
I might as well be dreaming
Sunny days have burned a path
Across another season
Ten years come and gone so fast
Sunny days have burned a path
2007 – oo wee
Lots of changes since then, but thankfully things have come around full circle and I am as happy today as I can remember being. I ache more now, but life generally is so much easier now that I no longer have to run children here and there and do the school run etc.
31 years married to the same woman, [most of them happily] three amazing daughters, siblings and extended family that all get along, and are all right now at least, healthy. Work that while not the most exciting I can’t ever remember dreading going to. Lots of good work mates, and plenty of good friends [although they do all seem to emigrate – a third is off to America early next year – more holiday options I guess, half full and all that] So, at this point, no complaints. Here’s to the next ten. Cheers.
Interesting, actually fascinating reading as always. Thanks for asking The Question @Hannah (as always)
2007 – eldest daughter just finished school, youngest about to start high school. I think I was recording the second of 5 albums of songs for children which have been quite successful. Would have just finished the last of the kids TV show I work on with attendant worry about how we’d get through till Feb when it starts again.
2017 – eldest daughter, now a teacher, has been living just round the corner from us for the last few years. Other two kids home for Xmas from London and Berlin, with partners. Loving this.
My parents both died in the last ten years, my Dad after 4 years of awful dementia, my Mum just this year, quickly and peacefully. Still have my job! And also I’ve released a bunch of my own albums which I think in 2007 I would have said I’d love to do but never had the time.
I can’t remember who Australia were playing in the Boxing Day test but I would have been looking forward to it, and also would have had tix for probably the first three days of the Sydney test with my son
On the face of it not much change. Same job and same marriage – happy with the job, really happy with the marriage – I have a soul mate par excellence.
My daughter was 8 and was gentle, kind, funny and an absolute joy.
In between we had the teenage years which from 14 to 16 were more than a challenge. Now she has come out the other side and is still funny, lovely and joyful which is a bonus because there were signs she was about to go off the rails now she is focussed and we achieve her goals through personality and hard work.
My son has finally settled with a really lovely Austrian girl who has just got a job in the UK – they have got a flat together so that makes me happy.
The big downer is I lost my Dad on the 22nd of December last year and I miss him like crazy.
All in all not bad I guess and some friendships with fellow AW’ers is a massive bonus.
In 2007 I was living hand-to-mouth as an agency electrician on building sites. I had a permanent overdraft facility with my bank and needed it every month to pay my rent/council tax etc. Car repairs, insurance, road tax, MOT etc. were worries when they cropped up. I owed about £2000 on my credit cards and was just about maintaining it at that level with the help of changing cards every so often to get interest-free periods.
I got myself onto the crew for Heathrow Terminal 5 in 2009 and worked there for a year making good money, which enabled me to pay off my cards and cancel all of them except the one from my own bank which had the lowest interest rate. I kept that one for internet transactions only and have not paid interest on it ever since.
After the Heathrow job ended I struggled again for a while (though never as bad as before) and then got on (initially through an agency and then later directly employed) with a company maintaining Housing Association properties. When they lost that contract I transferred over to the new company, with whom I stayed until March 2016, when I retired earlier than I was planning to because my workload and the company’s bureaucracy were becoming unsustainable and my employers seemed uninterested in the fact I was struggling.
Now I’m living on my state pension and some slowly dwindling savings. Not doing too badly but a bit bored.
I need to be out doing things, really, so some volunteering seems in order for 2018.
Good for you Mike – I recommend the volunteering. I did some using unpaid leave for a few months (day a week) when my job was getting me down some years back – good for the morale. And with a bit of luck you’ll meet some good people.
Thank you again to Hannah for posing such a great question.
In 2007 my girlfriend had just moved from a big city to live in the big town that I had moved to 12 months previously. I lived in a flat with my best friend, we had been working an album in his studio with our rubbish teenage band (some 15 years on) but it all sounded good. I’d just brought a new guitar and an amp, spending the grand that I had inherited as it was unexpected money. We did a gig in December 2007 which went badly wrong and never gigged again. The album may (or may not) still be sat on a hard drive somewhere and I’ve never heard any of the hard work the six of us put in again. I reckon it was 90% completed.
Mrs. Paws and I were married in 2009 and I left behind the private practice I was developing for fear of the impending “credit crunch.” As I was now married I thought I should get a proper job, so I took a well paid post in the NHS. I met loads of nice people in my new team, eventually taking on the role of team lead. It was stressful, but I believed in the work and loved the team. I had to commute a fair bit, eventually knocking out about 100 000 miles in six and a half years. Unfortunately our service was taken over by an NHS trust who seemed to be collecting different teams like ours. My new boss was not very understanding, bullied me and within 12 weeks I handed my notice in. Luckily during my notice period I was offered a job (back on the shop floor, as it were) nearer to home. My new team were a lot younger, funnier and so very welcoming. Considering I was on the verge of it all falling apart, moving there was about the best thing I could of done. Now I feel part of something, able to do some good work and (hopefully) make some changes to our client’s lives. For the past two years I have loved going to work and I have improved in my line of work and as a person immeasurably.
Now, I live in a nice house with Mrs. Paws and Minipaws. She’s asleep upstairs, dreaming (I suspect) of Harry Potter or My Little Pony or Star Wars. She’s really rather lovely, as six year olds are. I have only used my guitar and amp at a gig twice, maybe they’ll be a good present to my little one when she’s 18. I miss my friends from the band, having fallen out royally with two of them (although still on speaking terms). I don’t know why my former best mate doesn’t want to catch up, but I am trying to accept and move on. In the past 10 years I have been to about the same amount of gigs as I went to in the previous year, but hopefully my hearing will be a little preserved. I think I am very fortunate that I met and married Mrs. Paws. She is a much smarter person than I, and I have developed a lot as a result of this. I never thought that love would be like this, although it’s tough to spread it (and time) among our little family, but I’ve actually got a new hobby that I enjoy (rambling) and seem to be a dab hand with DIY. She has had a pretty shitty year taking a former employer to court over equal pay (in the 21st century? In the first world?) but we now have four chickens as a result. Mine’s called Beyonce.
Happy Christmas one and all.
Jeepers: all this havoc from reading about pop music? Was it the evil axis of Heppo and Mark, or did they light the flame that drew us moths….
2007: A year or so into my 2nd marriage, in a big brand new house a little beyond my means. A challenging and once enjoyable job beginning to go over a cliff. All seemed rosy.
2017: A year or so into my 3rd marriage, in the same house, now an affordable home. 2nd marriage ended in a mess of near-bankruptcy and breakdown, both mine. Job got worse. Took control and got out at the top. Gave dating a final toss of the coin. 3rd time winner. Retired. New job. Love it. Love life. Love wife. Lucky bastard.
Nicely written @retropath2. Drink over the festive period?
Ten years after and we’d love to change the world. Maybe Alvin was on to something…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7-8sCLWwLk
2007: the woman I’d been married to for 30 years and mother of our children died (of the usual) in May. I’d done all my grieving over the previous couple of years, and to be honest was happy that her suffering (and that of the rest of us, in a different way) was over. So I was determined to look forward. I bought myself an unsuitably boy-racerish Golf (salesman: “Goes like shit off a shovel, mate.”) and spent most of August “motoring” (as I liked to think of it) round France, dropping in on friends, staying in small hotels, eating in small restaurants and generally putting myself back together. I was expecting a future of being the spare man at dinner parties, but in September I met Jen.
2017: Jen and I have been married for 8 years (Mum: “Don’t fall for the first woman who comes along dear, it never works.”). It’s been a blast, and absolutely not how I saw the next ten years going. We’ve divided the time roughly between Blighty and Oz, and have moved house 4 times. I seem to have dodged one life-threatening bullet, but there’s another one bubbling under. No immediate cause for alarm though, AND: as detailed in another thread, my daughter is expecting twins, and I’m going back to UK, leaving Jen here. The new phase of our marriage is not what either of us would want, but we’re going to give it a go, and each of us will spend a month in the other country every year. In the mean time, GRANDCHILDREN, yay! (And, a minor consideration, I’ll be reunited with my books and my Gibson J-45.)
2007 – 41, one wife, three kids (1,4,6), two parents, two in-laws – about 110 kgs
2017 – 51, one wife (same one), five kids (16,14,11,8&8), no parents, no in-laws – about 130 kgs
I feel like I am at the stage in life where mayhem comes at me from all corners and I sense I may have another decade of this. I am *so* making it up as I go along.
I have noticed how intense and certain many young people (esp the boys) are about things. I was like that once. In the exceedingly wise words of Mr Kipling, triumph and disaster should be treated the same, right, ‘cos they’re both full of shit. At 51, I have come to realise that there isn’t a point where everything’s all sorted and all is well. But if that’s a depressing thought – the upside is that there never, ever a time when all is lost. We’ll always have Ryan Paris.
And Paris Hilton, it seems…
He’s so awkward in that Dolce Vita video – it always made me think that he must be the guy who came to the studio to fill up the snack machine and somehow ended up in the studio recording a global Eurotrash hit. Bit like that cab driver who found himself being interviewed live on the BBC when he’d actually come for a job interview.
I agree – it seemed that he wasn’t really cut out to be a pop star. I think there was this short-lived story going around (probably to make him sound interesting) that he changed his name depending on where he was. Ryan Paris today, Ryan London tomorrow, Ryan Madrid…Ryan Cleethorpes. Quite possibly the worst idea I have ever heard.
10 years ago I was 19 years into a marriage and 18 years into a job and now I’m……29 years and 28 years into the same marriage and job and I wouldn’t have it any other way. In other news we lost my marvellous Father in law which five years on still reverberates around our families. My Mum has had to go into a home as I’ve mentioned on here, she doesn’t know who we are any more but is being looked after amazingly.
Ten years ago I was in and out of hospital with urethral stricture but six operations in 2013/14 seems to have put me on the straight and narrow.
I am a ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ kind of bloke so other than above not much has happened.
So Merry Christmas and a very Happy New year to all the lovely people in here.
In 2007 I was entering my sixth decade, and I had no idea what was going to hit me in the following twelve months. Firstly I got a new job – the one I’m still in now. I was happy enough in my job at the time, but in retrospect was coasting and getting a little bored. This job, that’s filled most of the last ten years, has been tough and challenging but probably the most rewarding of my life. Even in the most stressful moments, and there have been many, I haven’t regretted taking it for one second.
But also in that year my mum died suddenly and unexpectedly from a stroke. The last decade has been one of caring for and losing parents – my Dad, who was grief stricken, died two years ago. And just this year my Father-in-law died after getting progressively frailer and my Mother in law has succumbed to dementia and we’ve had to find care for her. It’s hardly a surprise at our age to be losing parents but the inevitability doesn’t make it any easier when it happens.
Our daughters were teenagers preparing for the treadmill of exams. Ten years later they’ve come through Uni, moved out, got jobs, and are making their way in the world. They’ve both had challenges – one in particular has had to work to deal with anxiety and an eating disorder – but they’re lovely, bright young women, doing well, and my heart bursts with pride and love for them. They’ll be home this weekend.
Meantime we’ve had fun – plenty of great gigs, theatre, walks in the hills, holidays, and time together. Mrs BB has been my North Star throughout.
Oh and if you’d have told me ten years ago that we’d be filling the empty nest with a daft, affectionate, spoilt dog, I’d never have believed you. God knows how many miles of walking, and bags of poo later, there she is, demanding right now to be fed.
Great thread.
In 2007 I was a few of months on from having met the love of my life. We were in the process of moving in together and planning a wedding. I was still working at a law firm, doing long long hours, but enjoying it. Life had started to sort of click into place – for the first time in a long time I was seemingly in the right place at the right time.
In 2010 my daughter was born. Before she arrived, I wondered what sort of father I’d be, whether I was really cut out for it. The moment I clapped eyes on her I felt something in me shift, and the world seemed to do a little back flip. The midwife carried her over to the scales, where she lay, naked, agitated and crying her eyes out at the indignity of it all. Instinctively, I went over and whispered to her that I was her Dad, and that she didn’t need to worry. As soon as I opened my mouth she stopped crying and looked right at me. She didn’t cry again for days. In that moment, she made me feel ten feet tall and like I’d been put on the planet to be her father. It was a proper life changing moment, and it lead to a full on reorganising of my life and priorities.
Here in 2017, things are good. I love my wife more than the day I married her – so much of what is good in my life is down to her, and she still makes me laugh more than anyone. My daughter is 7, my son 4. I get tons of time with the pair of them, which I love. We live in a nice part of the world, surrounded by nice people, with a real sense of community. I have a fun, interesting job, doing work I like, with nice people and good prospects. More importantly than all that, I kept the promise I made to my daughter that day, and then later to my son. They come first.
This Christmas, I find myself pondering next steps. In a few months time, both the kids will be in school, and I already get a sense that they need me a little less than they did. A couple of very interesting work opportunities have presented themselves, that would allow me to go off and have a bit of an adventure, without too much disruption to the balance of our lives. I’m reticent to change anything, but I do find I’m mulling it over. At some point I will probably need to swing the focus back to work a little – it’s just a question of when and to what degree.
The only other thing that nags at me is the knowledge that it can’t go on like this forever. Life has given me a lot these last few years, and I know that at some point it will begin to take back. Every Christmas I find myself thankful that everyone in our families is happy and well, and that our worries are so utterly trivial. At some point, a Christmas will come when I can’t say the same. Until that time, I plan to enjoy life, because I know from experience that’s what you should do when the sun is shining, and the sun has shone plenty these last ten years.
With that, I’m off to watch Home Alone.
In 2007 I’d been married for 8 years with 2 kids aged 7 & 4. I’d started buying rental equipment as an add on to freelancing but the kit rental would soon take over from working for other people. It feels as though the business has peaked now and the last two years have seen a distinct slowdown which I can’t see changing without a bit of luck, further investment and a lot of work. We still make a good living but the best is behind us. Honestly, I’m a bit fed up with the business and don’t want to work as hard any more. I spent too much time working and not enough time living. I look on Facebook and see people I used to work with still living out of a suitcase on the airport/hotel/venue/airport treadmill. I’m glad to be out of that.
The kids are now teenagers, doing well. I find them much easier to deal with now they’re more independent and have their own interests. They both love music and play instruments so that’s something we can share. After a number of rocky years, we went for counselling for about 18 months and sorted out a lot of issues from our childhoods as well as a lot of resentment with our marriage. We stopped going to the counselling when we felt it was becoming counterproductive and after a long conversation, decided we were in it for the long haul and would keep going with our marriage. It’s been a good decision and we’re looking forward, not backward.
Mother in Law is now in a dementia care home. She’s gone from a tough old bird to a tough old bird who thinks she’s 25 and going dancing at the Hammersmith Palais. She’ll be 94 if she makes it to the end of January. My father will be 89 at the end of January. He’s getting more frail but his mind is still ok and he lives independently, still driving me nuts with his views on everything, particularly things he knows nothing about. Father in law died, leaving a house full of crap behind and no will which meant a huge amount of work to sort out his estate.
Our health is ok. I’ve got a bit of tinnitus, high blood pressure and the doc has just diagnosed arthritis in my knees but nothing major.
I really got my act together in the last 10 years at home and work but I’m 53 and sometimes I feel as though I’m still waiting for something big to happen. Ridiculous isn’t it?
Despite some people having tough tales to tell, I love these end of year threads. Wishing all Afterworders a Merry Christmas and a better New Year.
10 years ago – In a well paid job that I enjoyed and where I felt appreciated; but the company had just been sold which was the beginning of a downward slide. Things went sour, I took a redundancy deal, went through a rocky period of freelance work and one awful job that I chucked.
Now – Back in a steady job, similar focus, not as well paid but a lot happier with the company and the people. And the mortgage is paid, so happy enough on that score.
10 years ago – Happily married.
Now – Still happily married.
10 years ago – Working on ambition to earn something from writing fiction.
Now – Same, but finding less time and mental energy for the writing.
10 years ago – Felt very pleased with my physical condition for mid 40s, and running over 20 miles in an average week.
Now – Arthritic knee, lower back pain, and the usual problems of a 57 year old prostate. But still a 34″ waist and doing nordic walks and pilates.
10 years ago – Listening to a lot of folk, Spanish and African music.
Now – A lot more Americana and classical.
10 years ago – Reasonably optimistic about the state of the world.
Now – People in UK voted for Brexit. People in US voted for Trump. And China is gearing up to take over the world. Deeply sceptical and waiting for the aliens to invade.
Life has been disgustingly good to me over the last ten years. Family, tick. Work, tick. Looking to the future I’d I’d like to be less fretful and worrisome, and I’d like to take more pleasure in the kids. But these are things I can change quite easily, and they hardly qualify as setbacks. Like Bingo I fear it could all go tits up at any given moment — and surely will, because other than a beloved grandmother dying this year, I can honestly say that the worst thing that’s happened in the last decade was The Disappointment Choir unfollowing me on Twitter.
Ha, we did? I’m so sorry, when? If it was in the last few days it’s because I tried to bulk unfollow a load of people who didn’t follow us back but somehow the app that I used caught up some innocents in the drag-net!
Hee hee. Not sure when, but yeah, it was definitely in the last few days that I noticed. The weird thing was that it happened after I tweeted something nice about the album and I got paranoid that my tweet had somehow come over wrong. I considered contacting you direct but that would have been a bit needy. Far better to take a passive-aggressive approach, I decided. Much more grown-up.
I am apologise. Stupid app. 🙂
🙂
The weird thing is, I’m not seeing anything in my mentions even after actually logging in and actively looking. :-/
I’m mostly avoiding twitter anyway lately, so if I don’t respond to stuff, that’s the only reason (although the unfollow app thing probably didn’t help!)
Oh, I didn’t do the @ thing, might be why. Oops.
2007 — 2017?
Pretty much more of the same except for one major landmark: Retirement, about 3 years ago. Took a little getting used to, but otherwise great. Retirement is good for that creative stuff that you just didn’t have time for. And, having been appointed “extraordinary professor”, I kind of still have one foot in academia (although not much by way of remuneration). Moved to the country, and now lately have a partner and a relationship that might finally stick! Of none of this can I complain; in fact possibly my ‘happiest’ decade. Sort of.
Thanks Hannah for this 10-up thread. Pleased / interested to read about a lot of people who are not frequent posters.
10 years ago I was fifty and I refused to have a party. People thought it was a mid life thing but I was having an affair and felt to awkward to celebrate. I left the family home and a pretty rough few years followed. My son didn’t talk to me for 4 years and Mrs Wells’ kids hated me as according to them I had broken the marriage up. Work was fairly hum drum but v well paid. Things got better and I remember posting on the old place about my first meeting with my son after the excommunication. I got about 130 responses of support and encouragement on the blog and it literally brought tears to my eyes.
My Dad died of a disease that was correctly diagnosed too late. I regularly relive cradling his dead body in hospital. On the bright side Mum is 98 and likely to reach 100 easy peasy. Plenty of bands, music and loving the company of Mrs Wells #2. We got married a couple of years ago and this year I turned 60. I hired a band ,the Teskey Brothers who have since toured the UK and America. I got a bit too pissed and stoned but it was good to have old friends, new friends Mrs Wells kids, Mrs Wells ex ,her kids , my kids all there. Now my daughter has moved in along with twin 17 year olds of Mrs Wells. It’s busy.
I’ve established some friends from the blog- I caught up with Mojo / Johnny Concheroo in Perth Mike TheP in Brisbane and just today GaryJohn in Melbourne. Each meet up has been great and I hope to continue to call them friends.
Work hmm. got made redundant .After 30 years in same company the payout was pretty good helping to recover some of the divorce setback. Doe a few contracting jobs but in the finance sector 60 years old may as well be 90. So I do house stuff while Mrs Wells works. She is 12 years younger than me so I’d like her to stop working in the not too distant future so we can enjoy life together if finances permit.
Musically I still see a lot of bands but am listening to less new stuff. I’m preferring to go into back catalogue. I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know Sonny Rollins and Coltrane stuff I hadn’t heard. Blues is a main stay, country /Americana increasingly so and African is a cyclical thing.
Oh yeah me and a couple of music mates I went to school with are taking up dope again. I’ve bought some cookies for Christmas. Nothing OTT just for when we catch up for music nights.
Re your last point, just the other night walking home from the station I found myself thinking, “hmm, I could really do with a nice big spliff now”. No idea where that came from, I haven’t had the inclination, or indeed the necessary contacts, for years and years. Anyway, I got home and had a cup of tea instead.
They should ban that too then.
I recently hooked back up with an old old friend I hadn’t seen in years who used to smoke spliffs like a veritable spliff-chimney. He’s packed up smoking entirely (beckoning emphysema if he hadn’t) and replaced his spliff habit (but on a much-reduced scale) with vaping cannabis oil instead.
I gave up smoking both cigarettes and spliffs about 25 years ago, but lately I’m tempted to try vaping dope, for old times sake if nothing else.
Well we all loved it because it heightened the senses so appreciation of music. I’m here to tell you nothing has changed…. so long as it doesn’t trigger anxiety.
I’m toying with the idea of taking it up again. Smoking is out of the question, vaping is just ridiculous – no, just no. Luckily, I like cooking 😏. Any recipes gratefully received!
It’s been a quick ten years, I will say that. Ten years ago I was staying in Aberdeen and in 2008 I met the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, and I have sat next to Britt Ekland AND spoken to Jilly Johnson. This girl was eye candy #1 and great company. She was also the most selfish person I have ever came across in my entire life and the romance lasted three years before I bailed out…. I had to for the sake of my sanity. One example? I had a skin condition a few years ago that looked like it may be malignant (it wasn’t) and I was waiting on results coming back from the Good Doctor. I told M about the tests I was having and I will never ever forget her response, and I quote word for word: “Don’t bore me with your personal problems, I’m really not that interested.” Just that!
Also at the age of 60, I went to my father’s final resting place and saw photos of him for the first time and I met half brothers and sisters that I didn’t know existed, but then again, they didn’t know I existed either, but I will be eternally grateful to my Shrewsbury based half family for the absolute and 100% kindness they have shown me since I stumbled as a trepidatious stranger into their lives. There are good people about.
So here I am, back in the land of my childhood in the West Highlands of Scotland, about to retire soon. I have three kids and seven grandkids, I have excellent health and I am happy.
She still makes my heart do somersaults tho’.
Early Forties to early Fifties, the weightless years. You know who you are, you’ve made most of the mistakes you’re ever going to, and you’re in the arc of the parabola where you’re floating, neither climbing nor descending. Towards the end I’ve been feeling gravity’s pull a bit – my father died in rather brutal circumstances this summer, and I’ve taken on some invisible burden from that. Just the sense that I”m not immortal myself, I suppose.
I’ve been very lucky – a good marriage and good health, and the opportunity to see the world, keep the lights on at home, and just occasionally fulfil the creative odd impulse. It’s probably all a steepening dive down from here, but that’s okay, it’s been a hugely undeserved piece of good fortune to have flown at all.
Where are we now, where are we now?
Life seems somehow harder and colder than it once was. To an extent life and the world has been a disappointment. Recent world events make me feel progress is something that can easily be reversed and is under threat, despite the reality that, mostly, everything is really better than ever before – statistically. I feel that in life the possibilities once opened up and there were high hopes but now those possibilites close down and diminish. It’s good to be older though and know what you are and not care as much about what anyone thinks, but everything is now somehow more prosaic. Youthful dreaming inevitably fades. But I appreciate the present moments more than ever – a certain light outside, a fleeting effect of colour in the landscape, the usual cultural pleasures of books, music and film, a meal of great food, a cold beer, or a glass of wine, a warm exchange with another, a few laughs and silliness, enjoying making others laugh. There was never much more than that really. Long may it be there.
I’ve been together with the same Swede for twenty years. We moved to Sweden in 2013 which was a momentous happening. Now we have a beautiful flat, both have jobs and a good income, know wonderful, kind people and have a couple of holidays a year. We travel a fair bit – Costa Rica and Nicaragua this year. Blessed in many ways. Financially much better off. No regrets about leaving the UK really. When we go back it seems rather dreary and ugly, although we miss the restaurants and buzz of London – all the life there and cultural activity. Not that we made that much of it when we lived in England. Our town lacks places to go. Going to friends and family’s homes is more the thing, and in many ways is better than nights out. We’ve got Stockholm for urban stimulation and it doesn’t get much better than there. More art exhibitions would be nice though.
My father died last year. He had dementia and had no kind of existence really. I suffered a recurrence of a certain, long-term mental illness and had to go back on medication I probably should never have stopped. I had symptoms that felt to me like dementia, which was rather troubling. Fortunately things improved with the tablets.
This is a fine place to hang out. Interacting with mostly admirable, interesting people who have a lot of common interests and experience. People you don’t actually have to meet or have any obligation with thankfully, but still get the best of – couldn’t be any better. It’s brilliant really. So God Jul to all!
“I appreciate the present moments more than ever – a certain light outside, a fleeting effect of colour in the landscape, the usual cultural pleasures of books, music and film, a meal of great food, a cold beer, or a glass of wine, a warm exchange with another, a few laughs and silliness, enjoying making others laugh. There was never much more than that really. Long may it be there.” In the words of Nastassja Kinski, “yep, I know that feeling”. S’what it’s all about, expressed very well.
Thanks Gary. Ah yes, Natassja Kinski. A cultural pleasure indeed.
OK, let’s think…
2007 – First year of marriage, living in London and tried to buy a house. In January a preposterous mortgage for a house in that London seemed totally doable, and had an offer accepted on a place in East Finchley. By the end of the year the offer had fallen through and the banks had run out of money. A financial kick in the pants that would leave a pall over the next ten years; in that time we would end up moving 8 times. In December we found out we were expecting our first on the same day we went to see Crowded House play a storming gig at the Royal Albert Hall. That was a good day.
Intervening 10 years, got to see gigs I never thought I would: Monty Python, ELO, Macca @ the Hammersmith Apollo, The Wall (twice), Leonard Cohen, and stood beside Chuck Berry. Missed a chance to see Tom Petty. Was permanently rewired by Bowie @ the V&A. Online friends became real friends – didn’t think that would happen.
2017 – Now living back in Dublin, still married, kids are 9, 7 & 6. The kids are all in school, thriving, bright, funny – a good age where they’re old enough so that you can sleep in on Sunday morning, but young enough to think that I’m hillll-arious. I like parenthood. At the end of 2016 we managed to pull off something we didn’t think we would be able to do: buy a house. Today I am still struck by how much worry that has removed from our lives. There’s still the worry of paying the mortgage, but it’s a preferable worry. I feel angry about homelessness, which is a huge problem in Ireland right now. It’s not too big an ask that people don’t have to stress out about a roof over their head and food, is it? I don’t know what kind of madness awaits my kids when they’re adults. My wife made a sideways move from her job to doing a PhD, which she’s now finishing and it’s all hugely impressive to me. I have scaled the dizzy heights to become a hospital consultant. Whoop. Most importantly, three weeks ago we got a cat. Cats rule.
Oh, and I wish I’d gotten my eyes lasered years earlier – that’s an amazing thing.
And you may ask yourself: well, how did I get here? To some it seems like I’ve got it all sorted out. Like many of us, I don’t. If I have made it all look easy, it wasn’t, but I have little to complain about against the trials of many others.
I wonder what I would like to say when doing this exercise in 2027? The intensity of parenting multiple young kids has definitely killed off the creative things I used to do in life, or more specifically, the time to do them. Faffing on Twitter and all that might not help either. I would like to rectify that. If anyone in Dublin wants to start an XTC tribute band, please give me a call.
May I suggest you call your Irish XTC tribute band ‘Making Plans for Niall’? You can have that one on me.
Dublin already has an XTC tribute band…
Leading up to 2007, the realisation hit that we weren’t going to be parents
2009 .. quit job for a “short career break’ (hollow laugh)
slid into some black hole I recognise now as depression
.
.
.
*something* happened to pull me out of it (totally coincidentally I took some counseling round about then)
2014 a new job which I enjoy and a life that I love again
Bit of a shit sandwich but the crusty bits are nice 🙂
10 years ago I was a few weeks into my 2nd stint with an employer with whom I ended up spending over half of my working life. We’d had a couple of years apart after some stupid spat. I never really wanted to leave and they didn’t really want to lose my knowledge but it had all got out of hand. I was also sore that I hadn’t been supported during some interstaff wrangling. While I was away I did some stuff that my previous employer realised I could have been doing for them. After 2 years they invited me back, we did some hard talking, and I agreed to return. I’m pleased to say that my second stint went very well. When a problem occurred with my inherited staff the company backed me to the hilt. I introduced the improvements they requested, then negotiated a reduced 3 day a week role when I turned 60. I retired at the end of February this year and, although still very new to it, I quickly realised I was now viewing work as a period of my life that has passed
My retirement was timed to celebrate my Ruby Wedding Anniversary. 10 years ago my wife and I had 3 surviving parents. They all passed within that period, one after a savage descent into vascular dementia. Based on our observations you could be forgiven for thinking that old age is shit. I intend to put mine off for as long as possible
During the last 10 years we went from 1 grandchild to 4, and they are a source of delight. We get to see a lot of them and we enjoy watching them grow up.
We have been blessed with good health, whilst several of our contemporaries have suffered and in some cases, died. 2 ladies of my close acquaintance have become widowed in the last 10 years. Although we try to stay fit I don’t think that’s got much to do with it
10 years ago I was sat surrounded by instruments, noodling away. At one point I tried to learn to play clawhammer banjo. It didn’t happen, but my teacher said “you just need to get out and play”. What, where and with whom? I asked. His reply was simple; “That doesn’t matter. Just do it”. 10 years later I have an established trio and we have a regular gig. I’ve met lots of local players and I get to local jams or singarounds whenever I can. And the best thing is when I get the chance to play and sing with either or both of my sons
I wish all Afterworders good health and happiness for the next 10 years, and beyond hopefully
Crikey! Well…
2007 – Settled it a relationship of 5 years, with a 1 year old daughter. Enjoying my sales job, which I’d jumped feet-first into in order to increase my income.
2010 – Second child comes along, a son. Still in the same job. Everything good, apart from a long-term anxiety disorder which is life-limited in terms of travel.
2012 – Finally got married after 10 years together. Wonderful day. Had also discovered a love of cycling, which began to open up my world and improve my mental health.
2013 – Wife drops out of work to start degree, leaving us relying on my income. Resentment ensues as I find myself doing over half the ‘childcare’ whilst carrying the financial burden alone.
2014 – Despite above gripes, life is good! Cycling is going very well and I start racing. Mental health best ever. Begin taking trains to visit friends in London. Start to consider overseas flight for first time in 9 years.
2015 – Get made redundant at Christmas from job I enjoyed. Very upsetting. Use 10 year severance package to pay off debts incurred during wife’s degree and immediately find another job.
2016 – Start new job in Jan, which is good, but find the change overwhelming and struggle mentally. Wife finishes uni in March, starts working, often across weekends. Cycling has to stop. Mental health starts backtracking. Wife announces in May that she no longer loves me and wants me out. Manage to fight for the marriage and remain in-situ.
2017 – Annus horibilis! Wife finally chucks me out. Get diagnosed with diabetes. Lose the house to my wife. Develop a serious binge-drinking habit. Hit rock-bottom. Struggling with debt. Feel extremely resentful towards wife who is sitting pretty, while I have nothing to show for 20 years of full-time graft. On the plus side, I have a great relationship with my kids and my job remains enjoyable.
So there we are! Currently facing Xmas alone and wish I could take a pill and wake up on Jan 2nd. However, as Radiohead sang ‘I feel my luck could change’ so I approach 2018 with hope in my heart. Hope being all we have.
Hi Jim – it’s been a while. Good to hear from you again – fingers crossed for some better times in 2018.
Man, I’m sorry to hear that, Jim. What an awful year. But it’s also great to see you on here – I’ve missed having you around, and I’m not just saying that to be nice.
I have no useful advice because I’m an idiot, but offer positive thoughts, manly hugs and a heartfelt “stick around”. May 2018 bring you better-deserved good luck.
What he said.
What they said and get some debt counselling cos it won’t go away.
Welcome back Jim. Sorry to hear the bad, but chase the good.
Jim, it’s genuinely good to see you on here, was thinking only the other week how much your presence is missed.
It sounds like you’ve been on a bit of a ride. I have my fingers crossed that 2018 chucks you better fortunes, because from what I’ve got to know of you on here down the years, you 100% deserve happiness.
All the best mate.
BL
T1 or T2?
I’ve been diabetic 40+ years now, so if you ever need a sympathetic ear or advice, message me.
Hi Jim
Really sorry to hear of the cack you’ve been subjected to.
I don’t have any wisdom to offer, but please hang in there – you’re due a break or 3 anytime now.
All the absolute best looking forward – & it would be nice to see you regularly on the blog again.
JJ
Good luck. Been there, but not so severely (see above). Stop the drinking and other things will improve (worked for me anyway).
Back in 2007 I got married, got squeezed out of my job and moved house all in the same year – in fact all in the same month. For a while I thought the job loss was going to completely bollox our mortgage status, but thankfully it didn’t. And much to my delight, my arsehole of a boss accidentally overpaid my severance pay – just a pity I was never able to tell him. As my wife was freelance I felt an enormous pressure to secure another job – any job – as quick as I could.
A year of commuting 2 hours each way to a new job nearly did for me, but I found other work after about a year, and things got much better. I found adjusting to living with three teenage step children both challenging but offset by frequent moments of enormous fun and laughter. Although there was one 18th birthday party that I’ll never quite recover from…
2017 find us as empty nesters – something I quite like but my wife has struggled with. I’m now deaf in one ear, which has made music far less enjoyable, and healthwise I can see I need to get a grip. Working from home most of the time interspersed with monthly trips to the USA works pretty well for me, but I’m too sedentary, and sitting too near the fridge. I can’t recall when some part of me – leg, back, feet – didn’t hurt or ache.
A new boss – 20 years my junior and cocky with it – has prompted thoughts of retirement. It’s feasible financially but would be much better if I hold out for a year or two, but I’ve found that working out we could just actually afford it has made work like more tolerable, on the basis that if I find myself needing to tell him to shove it, it looks like the sky won’t quite fall in.
The posts above are both humbling and at times sobering. I’m in a pretty good place really and grateful for that.
Good question.
This day 10 years ago, I was in London having seen Bruce & the E Streeters in the O2 a couple of days previously. I was flying home to Dublin for a first Christmas with my very new partner. I’d been single for almost 4 years licking my wounds from an unexpected and unfortunate marriage breakdown. The right thing to happen, in truth, but still, it left an emotional and financial wreck that left me somewhat bewildered for a long time. The financial part overlapped well into the new relationship too which, I can tell you if you’re wondering, does not add much sparkle and fun when two people are getting together! Those few years between serious relationships were good for me and bad for me. I don’t really look back on them with much fondness at all. A few good times, granted, but also too many late nights, too many bad choices, too much foolish behaviour. I try not to think about it.
Anyway, December 2007. New relationship, Bruce concert. Where did I go from there?
Honestly the last ten years have been the best of my life. Apart from the first ten which I don’t really remember but I’d have to assume were fairly stress-free. After almost seven years together we married in 2014 and I love the life we’ve made for each other. We live in a nice place (although more room for records would be nice) and, happily, most of the financial baggage that I brought to the relationship has been unpacked. We’ve travelled together, met brilliant new people (some from Twitter who have become very important to us) and generally have a pretty decent time of it. A few years ago we both returned to third level studying which has enabled us to make changes in our careers. Elsewhere, lots of gigs, lots of long evenings chatting with lovely people. We both work hard (although neither of us are down the mines or anything) and enjoy life when we’re not.. We’ve travelled to lots of wonderful places, had lots of adventures and are building a decent bank of memories for when we’re too old to do anything anymore. And I know that most of it is down to what my wife has brought to the table. I don’t mean to be down on myself but she’s been the driver behind so many of the great things we’ve done – I’ve been very lucky.
It’s not all bubbles and giggles though. We had a couple of serious illnesses that were difficult to manage. And my Dad died this year and, although it was far from a tragedy, it was still very sudden in the end and has left a big hole. He was a sweet old boy and I miss him every day. At the other end of the life spectrum, facing up to the reality that we are a childless couple in a world that expects people our age to come with kids attached has been difficult. I won’t go on other than to say that it can be very difficult and people who have kids really ought to keep their opinions to themselves when talking to people who don’t. For one thing, it’s none of their business. For another, it’s like a knife to the heart every time someone brings it up. Which they do. A lot. End of mild rant.
Other than that it’s all been pretty good. But I’m not taking it for granted. When I think back to 1997 – newly married for the first time and looking forward to spending another Christmas in Battle Creek, Michigan with half a mind to moving to that part of the world permanently. Me then couldn’t have imagined what the next 10 years would bring and I’m too old now to make and great assumptions. The next 10 years? Maybe a bit more creativity outside of my day job which demands a lot of creativity at a fairly hectic pace. But generally, more of the same, please.
Speaking of which, this time 10 years ago, I’d just seen Bruce Springsteen. Next month? I’m going to see Bruce Springsteen. Call me predictable!
December 2007 was a time of massive upheaval chez Dynamite. We had a brand new three month old baby girl, and if that wasn’t enough we were about to move back to the UK after a few years in Tokyo. The business I was working for had been sold to a Japanese investment bank, and expensive foreigners were no longer on the agenda. I’d love to have stayed (seriously, people, which one of you wouldn’t want to be working in the music business in the greatest city in the world?), but it was not to be. I remember that Christmas well, taking our last few walks in the lovely neighbouring Arisugawa Park, trying to gorge on as much of the city as we could, and an apartment filled with packing boxes. The last morning is the clearest memory of all. We were in an airport hotel at Narita. I woke early, got up without disturbing my sleeping wife, stepped quietly past the crib, went to the window and peered through the curtain to see a beautiful, eerie, scene of bamboo plants shrouded in pre-dawn mist. Japan had one last thing to show me before I left (and before the aforementioned baby turned into a vomit fountain on the twelve hour flight home, but that’s another story).
In the decade since, I’ve come to rest in Bristol. I’ve been here nine years now, the longest I’ve stayed anywhere since childhood, and I don’t suppose I’ll be moving on any time soon (unless the premium bonds come up and we can pull off that move to the Black Mountains I’ve had my eye on). I like it here (and and plenty of people agree with me .) The infant from ten years ago will be starting secondary school next year, and she has grown into a marvellous thing, sparky, cute, clever, cheeky but not naughty. Ms Dynamite* and I are still rubbing along alright as well, just a couple of months shy of twenty years since we got together. I’ll take twenty more, and then another twenty. All four parents are still going strong, and we haven’t had any major upsets (well, I did have a skin cancer at one point, but it was sorted pretty quickly and pretty easily, probably about as mild as cancer can be). It’s been a pretty good decade. I don’t know what the next one will hold. I have a vague sense that some change will be necessary, be it work, location or whatever. I expect there will be bumps in the road, but I’ll try to weather them as best I can. I hope you all can as well.
*not that one.
Nothing ever changes in my life. I just keep rolling along, getting older, both losing and gaining friends along the way. I bought a film projector recently, so that’s nice.
Sorry but…
2007: my first full year in my current job. I am doing OK and am starting to think that I have landed on my feet – unaware that over the next seven to eight years those feet are slowly going to have concrete poured over them. I am also unaware that I have already made the few terrible decisions that will ultimately mean that I’ve made a total mess of my life.
My wonderful sister is alive and, apart from a dodgy back, quite well.
My wife is fully mobile and cycles to work every day.
It’s a good thing we can’t see the future, innit?
Sorry to hear that, Old Lad. Merry Christmas, Moose. The Funniest Man I Don’t Know.
Ah, Merry Christmas Beez’.
Don’t get me wrong. My life is good. Example: this morning I trialed a new hairdressers and was very impressed with the quality of the dialogue.
Me (poking head around door): D’yer do men?
Woman: We do, luv.
Me: How much?
Woman: (smile, one raised eyebrow) Depends what you want!
[filthy snigger from previously unseen male customer]
Me: I’m a simple lad with simple needs.
Woman: I can do you for eight quid, alright?
Me: Eight quid for ten minutes, a bargain, you’re on!
Woman: (laughs, thankfully)
Male customer: Its is, pal, She’s got lovely hands.
After a short wait, I’m getting in the Shearing Throne.
Woman: I hope after all that you’ve got a big tip for me.
Me: I’ll see what I’ve got in me pocket.
Male customer: (further filthy snigger.)
See? Life is good.
I’ve had a haircut as well.
So much in common.
It represents another instance where I threatened to turn into Moose the Mooche IRL.
This was confirmed later. I returned home, and Mrs M asked why I’d been so long, I opened my mouth and a Youtube clip of Schoolly-D came out.
She ignored it.
I am imagining that as an excerpt from “Carry on Something for the Weekend!” set in a swinging suburban hairdresser shop.*
You are Bernard Bresslaw, the hairdresser Babs Windsor and, of course, Sid James as the other customer.
*the title reflects the longer Carry On film names of the early 70s
Well, there was some jaunty music in the background.
(I think the TV was playing Homes Under the Hammer)
2007: Made redundant mid-year and out of work for a few months until I was offered a job by an Australian telecoms firm who operated their UK bit from the first floor of a tiny office block in Teddington. Horrible firm, horrible management. I walked out – literally – after being taken to task and humiliated by the senior manager early in 2008.
2017: Ha! Sometimes I think I’m no further forward. After I walked out of Teddington I endured another few months of joblessness until I landed what seemed a proper peach of a job with a government agency managing IT for the police. The arrival of the Tory Government and their ill thought annihilation of all the QUANGO’s you can think of threw a slight damper on things. But the function and the roles still exist, just in a different home. However resource has been strangled, re-assigned and generally stripped away over time. Those of us still in harness are spinning plates and dropping a few. It’s exhausting.
But. Hey! I’m OK. My wife and daughter are healthy and with me every step of the way. They’ve never let me down and don’t appear to be about to. Old friendships have endured and strengthened. I missed some Christmas drinks last night due to work and one pal rang me up from his train home to profess his undying love for me and mine in lieu of that drink. Deeply touching. New friendships have been made; some based online via this place. Despite the travails and frustration of a stalled career I’m richer in experience, content in the knowledge I have love and friendship around me. And deeply grateful for that.
Thanks to Hannah for launching the thread and thanks to all of you for sharing the stories of your lives. Here’s a bit of mine.
In 2007, I’d been in Bonn since 2004, (at the suggestion of my then partner of 6 years). The then partner and I got married in 2006 and we were trying for children. My fertility problems were the cause and it was fraught. Then in 2010, our first daughter was born. We didn’t know whether we would be lucky twice and for a long while we weren’t. Then in 2014 then second daughter popped out – in our bedroom, before we had time to get to the Geburtshaus. So children have been pretty much front and centre in our lives this last decade. A delight, but also a challenge, as my parents are back in the UK and no longer as spry as they were, and my wife’s family are up in northern Germany. It’s pretty much full-time childcare for one or other of us, 24-7. The blog has been a very helpful channel of creativity and communication when otherwise I’ve been housebound outside of work.
Work-wise, I started the decade as a freelance TEFL teacher, earning peanuts, and end it as an office assistant at the UN earning bigger peanuts, but with bigger expenditure. Both rewarding and frustrating experiences in their way, but the second was the fulfilment of a long-held dream to work for the international organization. Being a small cog in the body that enabled the Paris Agreement gives me a sense of pride in who I work for.
Doing in my 40s what most normal people do in their 20s or 30s is a bit typical for me as a late developer, and I’m not sure I’ve completely emerged from the fog of early parenting. Thanks largely to my wife, we have two enthusiastic and very energetic kids who are at different stages of embracing a bilingual, bi-cultural life.
I’m not sure how sustainable our life is – we both get exhausted and frustrated with each other, due to lack of time, sleep, holiday, rest and money. My 50s, which start next year, will be a big challenge, But we have worked hard to get where we are, partly through dogged determination and a refusal to countenance failure. I hope it’s enough to pull us through.
In 2007 I’d just started a breakaway design office staffed by colleagues of the same place I’d been stuck in for the previous two years (the result of a hostile takeover, which kept us there by golden handcuffs, we had to relinquish control to the US team and were left with nothing to do but fix their mistakes and twiddle our thumbs). Due to various financial wobbles and takeovers, I’d been made redundant 3 times in the previous 3 years, but never been out of work for longer than a few months. The fright made us reel in our spending, and we scrimped and saved to pay off our mortgage (the kids were young enough not to notice). I felt free of financial worry and was enjoying working for a startup, little knowing what 2008 had waiting around the corner. I was ill, though – so much so that I had to rent an extra toilet from the office landlord for my use in case of emergency.
In 2017, all is pretty good. In late 2012 I had an injury at work which required surgery, the surgeon spotted something wasn’t right with my insides, and I was finally investigated and diagnosed with Crohns in late 2013. I was properly ill for a couple of years, but the correct medicines and diet, and I’m healthier now than 10 years ago. My kids are turning out well, and my wife is still prepared to tolerate me and my ongoing musical obsession. I lost beloved grandfather, stepfather and mother-in-law in the last decade, but I’m middle aged now so is to be expected. I’ve been in the same job for nearly 8 years and not too worried about what next month might bring. It’s a bit dull at times, but “dull and healthy beats exciting and ill” has become my motto for all walks of life.
I really can’t complain. Crohn’s has been the biggest thing to happen to me and I’ve survived it. All the rest is flim-flam.
For those having a tough time now, do try to to keep in mind that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. Just keep scrabbling upwards and eventually you will reach the top.
Crohn’s made my life close to hell for about 15 years. Humira has sorted me out after everything else failed. Incredibly expensive and awkward solution but it works for me.
Yes, I’d say my twenties were sometimes awkward, my thirties pretty dicey, and in my forties I fell off a cliff for a few years. I’m not out of the woods yet, but I’m on a slowly upward-facing curve. Every December I’m noticeably better than the last, and long may that continue.
Dull and healthy – Aterword t shirt.
If anyone can show me somewhere else on the web where you would get a thread like this, I’d be very surprised.
The Afterword: Usually the loveliest place on the internet
How very true.
I’m very pleased you’re in a good place now Hannah and hope if continues. That first Mingle seems a long, long time ago.
Anyway after all these years, this will be the first time I’ve ever posted to one of these threads. It’s not something I find easy to do, but here goes.
In 2007 I didn’t have much inkling of what was around the corner.
I was working for the most useless local authority in the country (I won’t be coy, it was Hackney) and enjoying the journey to work (15 minutes on my bike) but little else. I made a couple of good friends there whom I still see (I also worked with one of the most obnoxious people I’ve ever met in my life, and unfortunately also had to sit next to him) but it was a place riddled with inefficiency and incompetence and so frustrating to work for if you actually cared about what you did and attended to it diligently.
In 2008, not long after they announced they were making me and most of the people I worked with redundant, my Mum fell ill.
Sometimes you only realise someone did you a favour in retrospect, but I know now that they did me a huge favour.
One of the few pleasurable things at that time, was informing them that the sum of the enhanced redundancy money they were paying me was incorrect. Being Hackney, they had only calculated for the four years I’d worked for them, but given the continuous service element that exists when working for local authorities, they owed me for 19 years in total. So in early August I left with the equivalent of a year’s net salary in my account.
But the better part of it was, that with my Mum gravely ill, I was able to spend an awful lot more time with her than I would have been able to do had I still been in employment. Despite the requirements placed on me by the JobCentre with respect to finding gainful employment (fairly draconian it seemed at the time, but nowhere near as hard as they are today) I did get to spend a lot of time with her.
My mother died early in December 2008, about two weeks after I’d started a new job – the one I’m still working at now. I didn’t say anything to her about being unemployed and I guess she assumed I was taking leave to be with her, but it was lovely being able to be with her for all that extra time. It was the longest time I’d been able to spend with her since the early 80s.
My wife and I have always had cats and in 2007 we had two lovely cats Monty and Hamish who were brothers. Both of them died very young from congenital diseases. In October 2008 Monty died from Polycystic Kidney Disease. We had to have Hamish checked and much to our relief he came out all clear, only for him to die early in 2009 from Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy.
We didn’t intend to get new cats for some time, but friends directed us to some people who had a cat that had just had a litter of kittens. As a result in April that year we took in three new kittens. We still have two of them. The other decided he did not want to live with us any longer and decamped next door, where he still lives, very happily. The two who stayed are crazy, highly strung (partial Siamese ancestry) but ultimately very lovely cats.
The last ten years have added to the length and Angela and my relationship, giving us 20 years married and 30 years in total.
As you get older you realise how fragile our hold on life is as more people around us die. The passing of some people is not unexpected as we recognise they have “had a good innings” whereas others such as Angela’s cousin, dying at 42 from an aneurysm seem arbitrary and unfair as well as shockingly premature.
It is interesting to see the talk about psychotherapy above. I’ve been someone who had been extremely sceptical about the efficacy of such things, but I’d been having problems for a long time which came to a head in 2014. I almost didn’t make it to any course of treatment. I went to see my GP but found a locum in place. He was totally unsympathetic and mocked me and so I walked out. He called me back and told me he wasn’t really unsympathetic, but was adopting the position that anyone providing treatment would take. This was complete and utter bollocks because no-one I subsequently had any contact with was anything like him. In retrospect I believe he was scared I would have reported him to the practice (which I would have done) and he wouldn’t get any more work out of them.
Anyway he got me referred to local services. It took more than year from that initial contact to starting a course of treatment. I had ten Cognitive Behavioural Therapy sessions and much to my amazement they have worked.
Work has changed a lot. I have been working in Croydon on the much maligned Prevent counter-terrorism strategy. I was pretty busy for the first couple of years, then when the government changed in 2010 funding for the work was cut. I found myself working in a non-priority borough and the nature of the work changed as I picked up more on hate crime, domestic abuse and sexual violence, guns, gangs and knives and a few other things. Prevent in 2011 was a very small element of my work, but it has grown bigger and bigger since then to the point that it takes up 90% of my time again.
Angela gave up work earlier the year and I’m looking forward to doing so next year. I feel I’ve worked long enough. I’m getting fed up with bureaucracy, which seems intent on picking on minutae and doing its best to hinder me doing my job, yet ignores egregious abuses: e.g. Rotten Boroughs.
Well said, Ainsley. I am amazed and moved by how candid people have been about some pretty nightmarish ups and downs. The contributors to this blog are clearly a tough bunch.
I can really relate to Gary’s description of life. Nothing much happened: slowly.
(And while you have a projector, Mr Monopoli, I hope to take a course in how to be a projectionist! Sometimes at our local film club the projectionist is delayed or doesn’t turn up at all. So it would be useful to know how to operate the equipment. Gosh! I am so dull and practical.)
Ten years ago our daughter was still tiny at only 18 months old. Her older brother was going through a period of complete obsession with toilet rolls, which sounds more amusing than the reality; it would be another 3 years before we got a diagnosis of ASD for him. Now they are both at big school, and he’s developed the most remarkable fascination with birds and waterfowl in particular, which occupies his life outside school; but the social side is very tough (he literally has one friend, who lives over an hour away). The extra support he needs is a major factor in my wife sticking to part-time jobs rather than going back full-time. On the other hand his sister is bubbly and gregarious, and always has an answer for everything. Maybe she should consider doing law. Their cousins are growing up to be amazing young people, particularly my brother’s kids who lived through their mum drinking herself to death – without doubt the most shockingly unexpected event in our family over the last ten years.
I’m still working in the same place, but it could have been several different companies the way my role has changed. In 2008 I was put on gardening leave and managed to switch to a different, far more interesting position. A few years later the guy who recruited me moved on so I took his place, and a couple of years after that the company was merged and everything changed again – but my team and I are still around, having avoided another round of layoffs this year.
I’ve often thought that one route to happiness is contentment rather than looking for perfection, and I still believe that. The 30th anniversary of meeting my wife was only this year (a Bronski Beat gig sans Jimi, pop fans); she is still my soulmate, and I still have an awful lot to be thankful for.
I’ve often thought that one route to happiness is contentment rather than looking for perfection. Absolutely this.
I had some talking therapy for a few months, as I’d had years of sprinting for the loo (because of the Crohn’s mentioned above) and had become not agrophobic, but a bit reluctant to go out unless I knew there was an accessible loo nearby. Anyhow, the most useful thing I learned there was “don’t worry about the things you can’t influence, and accept the rest for what it is”. I’ve never had a problem relaxing – music, see? – but I’ve learned not to get myself worked up about decisions above my pay grade at work, Trump, Farage, etc, and I can cut my kids a lot more slack. I still think the world is going to Hell in a handcart, but “am I bovverred?”
All sounding a bit like the serenity prayer, which, irrespective of links to religious memes and it’s adoption by AA, still is pretty smart stuff:
(God) grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
There is a 2nd stanza I can’t be doing with and, personally, I lop the God off the beginning, having none. And I am lucky enough to be able to enjoy a drink unlike the many who can’t or daren’t, as my brother, 30 years sober.
I love reading all these stories. I’ve been a lurker for a while on here and one thing that makes you all seem less intimidating is when you get all personal n’all.
Don’t feel as if I’ve been here long enough yet to get personal myself, but I’ll just say that the last ten years have been a bit fucking shit for me. Might be light at the end of the tunnel yet, but I’ve certainly come to the realisation that my life has gone down an irreversible side track that I should have avoided long ago. Merry Christmas though!!
Well mate you are a lurker no more. It’s all just opinion on here and yours are as welcome as the next person …… unless you slag Dylan 😉
It does humble me when I read through some of these posts and realise the pain some of you have been through/are going through. Other than the loss of my mum in 2009 and my dad in October of this year I’ve had a blast over the past 10 years and it would seem like gloating or boasting to list all the good stuff.
I’m happy, relatively healthy and wealthy, and I know I’m very lucky, all good things to everyone looking forward.
2007: Very unhappily married. Forcibly removed from a start-up I’d remortgaged my house to get off the ground. Suffering chronic levels of stress and trying to find a reason to live that didn’t involve the word “should”.
2017: Falling in love, properly falling in love, with someone who I would have fallen for at any time in my life. Happily divorced. Working solely on creative projects, with lots of collaboration and fun. Kids with me 50% of the time, when I worried I might not see them much. Life is good.
Happy Christmas all
Hi Hannah, quite a good question, even better to take stock at this time of the year.
Pros: my girls (25, 18) continuing to develop and delight, my job (teaching) still enjoyable, upgrading my stereo to just fantastic level, good hash readily available (but see smoking below), health still pretty good with minor reservations, the internet shrinking the (my) world, this place is cool.
Is living abroad pro or con? Both. Do miss Ireland, the crack* is great but know if I’d stayed, I’d have turned into a fat alcoholic. Now 40 years in Germany, grand country really, liberal and enlightened, just a bit dull, the people aren’t expected to be “characters”. So aren’t.
Cons: getting through second divorce, relationship after that lasted 5 years but ground to a halt as I didn’t want to do the patchwork thing again (I’m a lot older), losing my Dad, putting on a bit of weight, enjoying smoking too much to give it up.
All in all, life’s pretty good.
* Yeah, craic, whatever. Bogus word, bogusly spelt.
2007 Got married, had had one artificial hip for two years, working for HMRC in a (relatively) interesting job but getting fed up with commuting
2017 Still married to the same lady, love her just as much if not more than before. Took early retirement 3.5 years ago. Don’t know how I found time to go to work. Expecting another artificial hip to be implanted (have a consultation with surgeon on Jan 5th) although I have tried to stave this off with exercise etc. Have been three months into volunteering with local hospital radio – having a ball and cannot understand why I didn’t do it years ago.