My earliest memory, I believe, dates from 42 years ago
today: November 2, 1970. It’s dark, I’m lying down and my father is bending over
me, saying “and tomorrow you’ll be two”.
I think this is a true memory. I’ve always thought it to be
so, and I seem to have recalled it many times throughout my life, particularly
as my birthday approaches. But whether this has refreshed it, or merely rebuilt it and
I just remember my own construct, I can’t be certain. According to Wikipedia’s
entry on childhood amnesia (the phenomenon that adults cannot remember
early childhood clearly), "memories from early childhood (around age two) are
susceptible to false suggestion, making them less trustworthy". A bit like Wikipedia.
I mentioned my memory to my dad some time ago
and he doesn’t believe it happened, but that could be because he doesn’t
believe I could remember it. I think it is more or less accurate, but I may have altered
some details. I’m pretty convinced of the words spoken, but my father’s face is
blurry – it’s undeniably him but I’ve no clear picture of him in his late 20s.
Also, I think I’m in a bed, not a cot, and in my own bedroom: that’s dubious
because of another early memory I have, of being just a little older and breaking
out of my cot, which was in my parents’ bedroom.
That apparently quite regular escapade is still occasionally
the subject of an amusing family anecdote, but I'm convinced of my memory of
doing it because I remember what it felt
like. One end of the cot was an integral blanket box, the outer face of which
was a curved roller door. I remember clambering onto it from inside the cot and
then the discomfort, the pressure on my ribs, as I spun myself round on my
chest on its angular surface so I could slide down over the roller. It hurt, but not enough to stop me doing it over and over again. I think it
would be hard to construct a memory of physical sensation like that.
And tomorrow I’ll be 44. How very middle-aged. Still, it’s
fashionable to be middle-aged – everyone I was at school with is doing it, even
the cool kids.
I’m not quite sure when you become middle-aged. Not halfway
to three score years and ten, anyway – 35 is young these days, and counting
anything by Biblical reference leads to nonsense about the Earth having yet to
reach its 6000th birthday and our ancestors having the opportunity to
own pet stegosaurs.
The generally-accepted gateway to middle age seems to be at
40, and that is closer to the halfway mark suggested by UK National Statistics, which is just about 80 (except for
viewers in Scotland). So by that token, I have been middle-aged for four years, or
ten per cent of my life. But these averages don’t really mean much, middle-age
is more a matter of mind than of numbers. I think it happens when mortality
first bites, at that point when our sense of invulnerability quietly slides
away and we see the final curtain flapping in the wind, even if it is still some way away.
In my case, that was just about a year ago. In the run-up to my 43rd
birthday various doctors interviewed, examined and scanned me to
ascertain why I had thrashed epileptically across the office floor at the start
of October; a week later I went for my first MRI, and disturbingly quickly
after that had what is probably still the worst day of my life so far - November 16, 2011 - when I woke up to a phone-call telling me my lovely wee Gran
had died, and then went into hospital to learn that I probably had a brain
tumour.
Less than a week after that I was chatting with neurosurgeons who asked
nicely if they could cut into the side of my head to check. And on December1,
they did.
Just days before that operation I started this blog, so everything that followed - the
whole unpleasant business of being told that I did have a tumour and it was
likely to try to grow a new head, having to tell other people, and then the
vaccines and radiation and chemo, the tiredness and sickness and hair-loss – have
all been well documented.
So if you've read at least some of that, you'll realise that on the whole 43 hasn't been a great year for me. But
while I hate to cast myself as relentlessly optimistic – I do like to examine
all available silver linings for clouds – I can’t help seeing the upsides to
this year: I married the love of my life, had a couple of great holidays, and
my new-found sense of mortality reinforced my sense of how precious time is,
which has given me greater ambition to do things for the fun, satisfaction or
hell of them (more on that in later posts, perhaps).
And tomorrow, I’ll be 44. So tonight, Clare and I are off
for some posh drinks and then a nice meal in a new and highly-recommended
restaurant. Tomorrow, I will go out with my mates for some not-at-all posh
drinks, some increasingly badly-focussed pool-playing, a curry, and further
beerage to finish.
Wish me a happy birthday. And if you want to make it
happier, click the donate puff at the top of the page and give The Beatson some
money.
They’re the reason I’m feeling good and ready for another year, after all.
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