Half Way There

When I was at primary school, I distinctly remember being told that life expectancy for men was three score and ten. I also distinctly remember thinking that the year 2000 seemed as distant as a diplidocus. I wanted to be a policeman when I grew up and to play for Scotland, yet my footballing ability never quite matched my footballing ambitions. I even remember checking in my wardrobe, under the bed and even out in the linen cupboard on the landing for monsters, ghosts and bogey men before I went to bed. I longed to be 17 so I could drive, 18 so I could drink in a pub, and well....old enough to shave and have a hairy chest too.

Driving is ok. Family cars are boring though.
Drinking is ok, but over rated (those who knew me as a youthful twenty something will be spitting out their coffee at this point)
Shaving sucks.
I have the chest hair of a pubescent boy.

All of that counts for nothing I have come to realise. What's important when your 7 is playing football for every waking moment. And 8, and probably 9 and 10 too. Girls start to creep in about 11 I think. Kissing them, and in front of all your mates too, becomes more important than life itself. By the time you're a teenager, you'll shag a barber's floor if it'll get that particular monkey off your back. For a long while, ones footballing ambitions are matched only by his sexual ambitions, and ones ambitions and ones capabilities seem destined never to align on both fronts.

But what's important when you're 35? Well, I don't bloody know because technically, I've only been 35 for about an hour and a half I think. I've spent the day of my 35th on an oil rig, working for an absolute tit (and I have worked for many but we're talking Jordan here) of a man. I even bought the mars bars and coke for the lads, as is the unwritten rule. So, no cards (with good excuses too!), no beer and £30 down? Way to go Shaunie Boy.
To top that off, MPLST is at a wedding today. Not the kind of wedding where one is secretly glad to be offshore, but one of good friends, and I'd much rather have been there. Oh, and whilst I'm moaning, I'm out here for Chrimbo too this year!! Should have been a bloody bobby.

But I digress. The same teacher who told us about three score and ten, also told us that, statistically, at least 1 out of our class wouldn't make adulthood. He wasn't wrong either. It's a damn shame it was one of the good guys (it always is). So, it's not all bad - there are worse places to be than oilrigs.
I reckon I can settle for being a 35 year old husband, and a father of 3. For now, at least! I've not been to the docs yet!

By the way, the monster was cunning. It wasn't in the linen cupboard or the wardrobe, it was in the bloody bed right next to me for 10 years. Some boys are slow on the uptake.