I hope I wasn't driving when I took this picture, though maybe I was. I have done that on rare occasions, getting the camera ready before I go and then just picking it up and clicking randomly, eyes on the road and fingers crossed for a usable picture. This one turned out okay.
In two weeks I will be 40, and for the first time since I was a child I am looking forward to a birthday. I am excited for my forties. My childhood was something I had no control over; my twenties a fast blur of weddings, travel, nappies; my thirties a slow sinking under the quicksand of duty, obligation, trying as goddam hard as I could to do what I thought was the right thing. I am not exactly sure where I got that list of what was the right thing from. A patchwork assortment I picked up from society, family, religion, I suppose. The usual. I am embarrassed to admit how badly I chose. The damage caused by wearing ill-fitting expectations for so long nearly destroyed me.
Never mind. That list has been torn up, and I am in the midst of writing a new one. Progress is slow, but I have the first item. It's a quote from George Bernard Shaw: Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
That's the story so far.
