Selling out the light for the cellulite

At the risk of sounding old, because I am. Although perhaps, if I stood in the shadows, dimmed the light, and squnited I may get away with looking 10 months younger.  I will then have dreams of mutton will dress as lamb, if one has handy some sticky back tape, a pair of scissors and the Angel Valerie in attendance. If truth be told, as it often is, its hard to see the facts staring me in my mirrored face. No wrinkles will see my retinas with or without cataracts. Oops I am afraid, wrinkles will have their day in the sun.

I am facing not only jowls the size that says "Feed Me......come on  Big Mac", but I am also facing the fact that the good years may be behind me. As careers go, I should get use to my cubicle-space allocation quota. The shape of things to come is not getting bigger. The light at the end of my tunnel  may damn well be getting nearer but it is not getting brighter.

I look around the desk that is my empire, a laptop, a phone, cupboards, shelves, and see...... is this my reward for the years when I scorched earth, where I broke through glass ceilings with bloody wounds, where I broke down the walls of heart attack aches with a Beta blocker or two ,where I put my foot in doors whether open or not.  I threw metaphorical grenades as friends became ex- friends, faster than Bruno Mars could come to the conclusion catching grenades for ya is not a good idea.

I may still cut it as the wise old jowled head of sanity, but sanity is a burden that I carry in the face of a wave that has King Canute's name on it.

These days  I see my dynamism as quaint, running up that hill like a Jack the Lad  with a pale look and furrowed brow, my mojo as perhaps a tad to earnest, a tad too unnecessary, when there were other things to do, like being a Dad. My foot perhaps was not so much, in , through , over doors as in my mouth. And by gum these days I could easily accomodate size nines with enough room for a Big Mac to sneak pass.

You know you're growing old....

So its come to pass and it is not passing well.

I face disaster of Biblical proportion. Is it raining frogs that cats and dogs appear to be kittens and puppies; are rivers parting at a drop of a sturdy rod; is there a plagues of locusts playing merry hell with the cauliflowers; are first born males seeking to get in touch with their feminine side that surgery is a viable option. So what has brought this religious old testament fervour.

I will tell you.

This catastrophe that will bring a tear to an eye and a wobble to a knee, more than my aging middle-aged body is happy to accept as normal for a man of my age.

I have been passed over.

I have a new boss. I have a boss half my age. I am looking up to a whipper snapper knee high to a grass hopper. A boss so wet behind the ears that a plastic surgeon would probably recommend shifting a tear duct.

He is dynamic, animated, motivated, excelling to the point where arrogance and confidence become a fine line he is not afraid to cross. He instructs me on things. I counsel caution, he sees cowardice.

Brave decisions will be made this night, and there by the grace of some decades there went I.

I made brave decisions once and learnt bravery should be tempered. I learnt too late for a few lost oldies  who foundered on the back of my survival as I succesfully avoided my come uppance. Small mercies for those who left that I got better, I learnt. I drew a firmer line between arrogance and confidence.

Times pass but sometimes it remains the same. The wheel turns and we can end up at the same space, if not the same place.  I have a feeling this may somehow be fitting justice for me.

I hope the Company survives. Let us pray.

The seriousness of the Middle-aged middling Exec

I  am there the old fella with a face that could waken the dead and unwaken them. I could star in a twilight years' movie. This is a serious face, a face that adds more to the IRR, more to the Company turnover, more to the profit margin a than a quizical look of a young eyebrow, more than a furrowing of the young brow. This face can portray by a consternation of a jowl that negotiation has not finished. This face can cause a sharp intake of breath that may need medical staff in attendance readying breathing apparatus. This is business. This is negotiation. This face is getting the bottom line a little higher. This is why they pay me sums of money.

I am a professional , having professional conversations, and the price I pay is small talk never rises to social talk most times. So we face the post Business dinner partying. This is not a party by any definition of my father, we are misleading the witness m'lud. This is small talk gone big-time.  Conversations settle into safe places, "how's the..." the kids doing at college unless they are not, the wife doing unless there is a divorce, the rugby is doing reasonably well unless the wooden spoon is being carved.

But out of the 9 to 5, in my time, I want to party, to tell the world a joke or two that may involve self deprecation, that may not be as politically correct as one ought to be. I want to go tabloid in the broadsheet world. I must stay strong in the face of an intake of wine that may release a general sharp intake of breath all round. I must not dribble the secret sauce. I must know how to use the silver spoon after it has been placed right-most on the dish. I must not suggest if you were my wife I would drink the poison and fail to give credit to Mr Churchill. I must remember that on Monday I must still be the strong jawed IRR-focused old fella.

Once at a younger age, I was a young fella and with other young fellas and we could party under the eagle eye of the old fellas in a corporate party, to get slightly drunk and hope to be forgiven, to laugh and then laugh louder on an equation inexorably linked to alcohol.We could party-ish.  An old fella may have joined us and regretted their faux pais on Monday, his respect left at a door called Emergency Toilet Exit remembered from the night before ~ one of the boys. Now I am an older fella and emergency toilet visits are to be avoided. Sacrifices to age, I must maintain my depressing work gravity that keeps my feet firmly on the ground.

I am destined to be bipolar and to hide it in the safety of my family home.