Ring out the old, ring in the new

We visited my grandmother last week, for the first time with our Sam.
She is 87 years old, he is 7 months old.

She is so busy dying, he is so busy being born.

When I looked at my grandmother, so old, so tired, so confused, and then looked at my son, so young, so eager to discover, so alive, I got one of those rare lumps in my throat. You know the kind: it tells you that you're sad, but at the same time it tells you you're happy and especially lucky.

Scarily, it also made me realise that nowadays I often behave more towards the way my grandma feels than the way may son feels. Obviously not in such an extreme way, but somewhere in this year suddenly I seem to have passed that invisible but dangerous line that seperates young people from old people.

What? Hey, I'm 31!

I know. I know. You're old when you decide to be. Or, no. You're old when you decide not to keep doing new things. You're old when you stop discovering.

In 2010 I'll put a lot of effort in giving myself a huge kick up the butt. Bear with me until I find my way back please. I don't want to be old yet.

That's a start, right?

Have an exciting new year everyone, full of wonderful discoveries of all kinds.