A DAD'S LIFE:The traumas of 2010 have left me envying X-Factor'sWagner, writes ADAM BROPHY
APPROACHING NEW Year’s Eve and everyone’s a philosopher. If there’s one thing that depresses me more than New Year resolutions it’s the insistence that at this time of year we should all stand still, gaze wistfully at the sky and be thankful for what we have. At this time of year I have a big pile of debt and unpaid bills. Thank you, sky.
This has nothing to do with avoiding determined resolutions or being mindful (urgh, hate the word) or grateful, and everything to do with wondering why the end of December has a monopoly on these “emotional settings”. We spend the whole year planning what we’re going to do next and justifying those decisions by basing them on the positions we hold at any given time. We resolve and acknowledge non-bloody-stop. It’s the only way to keep moving.
But, because Hallmark insists on it, I suppose I’d better do a bit of looking back. This year was pretty rubbish. Lots of people lost their jobs, our financial system imploded, the clowns who oversaw the mess are still in charge and the world appears to be freezing over.
The thing is, on a personal level, we here at Dad’s Life HQ are in more or less the same situation as this time 12 months ago, with only a couple more lines around the eyes. For that I have to be grateful and yet, because of the Jerry Bruckheimer disaster epic scale of 2010 in general, I’m looking at 2011 rather nervously.
Even if the fallout from everything that has happened this year hasn’t fully impacted yet, the mental effect has already taken hold. Any notion, as fostered in recent, apparently wealthy years, that there is a safety net held fast beneath us has dissipated, blown away like a developer’s cashflow. There may be no change, bar tax take, in our personal circumstances, but it feels like there has been a collective change in our confidence.
This impacts how? I’m not sure, but in this household it seems to be in my replicating my father’s actions of 30 years ago. I could never figure out why he would march from the top of the house to the bottom to tell me to go to my room and turn out the light. Why didn’t he just do it himself while he was there? He may have saved a full penny in the time it took me to reach the switch.
Now here I am, huffing about fuel prices, sweating over phone bills and losing the plot because nobody around me gives a toss. I know at some point one of the kids will launch a missile at the other and I will utter the words: “You could take someone’s eye out with that.” Things will have gone full cycle. I will officially sign over any demented aspirations for rock’n’roll cool I still harbour.
It was my birthday last week. The elder sighed and informed me sympathetically that I was “getting old”, but not in a way designed to taunt. It was as if she was acknowledging to herself that her Da was approaching decrepitude and she was struggling to come to terms with the fact. As if this was difficult for her, never mind me. My hair receded a further inch in despair. It’s one thing to deal with your last birthday before 40 and big yourself up enough to cope, but any hope of remaining positive is dashed by your child’s well meaning sympathy. She may as well start spoon-feeding me pureed veg right now. It’s all in the post.
So here comes 2011. If we don’t have anarchy and strife on the streets by March it seems that the weather gods will have a pop at us anyway. I’m facing into this concerned that my non-existent pension has no chance of carrying us through the coming Armageddon and my ancient, rotting carcass will have to rely on our crumbling health service sooner rather than later.
No, personal circumstances haven’t changed, but due to a diet of Prime Time Investigates I’m pretty sure I’m going to die tomorrow and, if I don’t, there’s no way I’ll get through the coming year. Even if by some miracle we get that far, I’ll be raising the family in a dumpster, barbecuing rats and scavenging yesterday’s newspapers for X-Factor tittle-tattle.
Maybe that’s the answer, X-Factor auditions. Be the 2011 Wagner; in one swoop become a star, loaded with lucre, and revitalise self in child’s eyes.
Mmm, that’s what 2010 has done. Changed hope into something that relies on becoming Simon Cowell’s hand puppet. Bad 2010. Bad.