Too quick

There’s a quote by author Martin Amis that appears regularly on HouseGoesHome. It’s about ageing and goes like this ..,

“As the 50th birthday approaches, you get the sense that your life is thinning out, and will continue to thin out, until it thins out into nothing. And you sometimes say to yourself: That went a bit quick. That went a bit quick. In certain moods, you may want to put it rather more forcefully. As in: OI!! THAT went a BIT FUCKING QUICK!!!… Then 50 comes and goes, and 51, and 52. And life thickens out again.”

As my 55th birthday approaches, my life still feels like it’s stretched too thin. The only thick thing is my waistline.

I think it’s because I left the parenting gig so late in life. But the youngest will finish the HSC at the end of the year and the weight of my responsibilities will – hopefully – become a little lighter.

Amis is right though, the years race past far too quickly.

I caught up with one of my oldest friends last night. One minute we were two kids geeking around in the Belair Primary School playground, the next she was the Very Reverend Katherine Bowyer.

Please forgive the sweary quote, my dear, Very Reverend friend.

One of the proudest moments in my life was seeing the news that Katherine had been unanimously accepted as the Dean and Parish Priest of Christ Church Cathedral in Newcastle. It brought tears to my eyes because I knew she would do great things in her new role. And she has! She works selflessly and tirelessly for others seven days a week and is a role model for female priests, kindness and inclusion.

Katherine doesn’t get much sleep in her role, so she came down to Sydney to get some on a well-deserved holiday with her husband.

We met at the Harbour View Hotel in The Rocks. It was the setting for one of the favourite movies in my teen years, Starstruck.

It’s the most beautiful old pub and has kept many of its original features. We sat upstairs and sipped cocktails together with the most spectacular view of the Harbour Bridge.

We also enjoyed the most delicious dinner – my Yamba prawn risotto with salmon caviar rates as one of the best meals I’ve had in recent years – as we caught up on each other’s lives.

Katherine is one of my loyal blog readers, so she knew all my top-line news, but I filled her in on some of the bottom-line stuff and she didn’t bat an eyelid.

I am still a bit slaughtered by post-COVID fatigue and forgot to take any photos of us together, so you will have to make do with one of us in our long-lost youth.

A sign that I am on the mend will be when my Instagram account gets active again. In the meantime, I will wearily steal other people’s photos to illustrate my adventures.

Song of the day: U2 “She moves in mysterious ways”