Maybe it’s not just the universe that expands and contracts. Perhaps the same applies to us?
As we get older, our lives start shrinking. As a child, I remember the main hall of my secondary school looking gargantuan, draped in rich red curtains from floor to ceiling. So too, my presence on a football field, where I’d often feel lost until the PE teacher bellowed across the wind for me to ‘take a breather’.
The hall, a little passage in time, and the pitch a bit bigger than a postage stamp.
Over the years, I’ve retreated into a smaller world. I feel myself getting smaller and I feel quieter, with a palpable sense of physics pulling me inwards. I occasionally wonder if I’ll carry on my minor harmless existence until nobody notices at all. Not unless I do something.
An ‘undo’ switch in life would help, if not a pause button to slow things down a little. A mythical soul-mate might just hold the key to fulfilment, and the shrinking of life itself.
On my best days, wearing my most expensive aftershave and after a good night’s sleep, I might just be considered passable. She’d be a patient girl, who’d be indifferent about the ‘Five Love Languages’ and pithy astrological compatibility. She’d be ambivalent about a hike up a hill and roast dinner on a Sunday afternoon, too.
I’d do my best to be kind. To listen to her. To learn about being with the girl I care about when there’s no soundtrack in the background and no games going on. It would be enough and most crucially of all, I’d never lose sleep that it wasn’t.
One day, my friends might say: “Where did you find her, Ben? You’re punching above your weight! Does she have any sisters?”
I’d be a sort-of-ok looking bloke who could make her laugh, perhaps, and who’d make her feel comfortable in herself. I couldn’t blow her away – I’m a proven failure at that – but she could at least warm over time; to overlook me with good reason, only to realise I was what she was looking for all along. Or something like that.
A life behind a laptop beneath council skies keeps me busy in the meantime. I’ve found myself distancing myself from the pillars of my recent years in the hope of bringing about some peace, not that it has worked. They just become more unfathomable and perplexing and the distance makes me lose perspective. If I’m not careful, I could turn vinegary and judgemental, like the man I see in the Sainsbury’s Local down the road, muttering to himself with soup stains on his jumper.
I’m probably less critical of people when I allow them in. The Sainsbury’s staff seem kind, for example. They call me by my first name with what feels like affection as I buy my £3.50 meal deal and a packet of treats for the dog. Dawn counts down the days to her holiday in Greece and Heather bemoans the never-ending wintry weather. The Eastenders omnibus will take the edge off when she finally makes it to the weekend.
People seem inherently nice until they let me down. They’re not as dependable or unconditional as a dog, but they’re occasionally not so bad. At least this is true of some people. And maybe this is the trick: to find the right people, to be able to recognise them and to know how to appreciate them when you discover them.
All this isn’t to say I’m not at peace, partly because I’ve been framing it incorrectly for so many years until now. Peace is independent of any one feeling, and deep peace is in minor key. It is not blissful, but melancholy. It’s a profound acceptance of things as they were, devoid of superficial preferences.
Before tomorrow morning’s omelette, I’ll dig out some bird seed and restock the feeders which are looking a bit sorry for themselves. I’ll put some fat balls out for the bigger birds who can’t balance on the seed feeder’s small perches and I’ll scatter some on the lawn for the little dunnocks to have a peck at, should they be out and about.
I’ll stand with hands on hips looking towards the garden, fill the kettle up at the sink and pop into the living room to allow myself some Sky Sports News for a minute. Then I’ll retreat to my desk for some more stories about things that make the world go round. I’ll pop my head above the Lenevo for lunch at 1pm and time will fly until it’s time to close it all down for another day.
Over the next few months I’ve got some choices to make before the world becomes miniscule.
They can wait until tomorrow.