I’m approaching a new decade in my life, and it’s making me think. I’m not that bothered about the Significant Birthday, at least not consciously, but I’m fascinated by how many turns my life has taken in the past five years, let alone the last 20-something.

I certainly feel older, or rather things make me feel older.

This is the kind of music I listened  to while growing up:

I find the contemporary equivalents dull and soul-less. I’m sure my parents felt the same in may respects.

Life goes on. The world keeps turning.  Music keeps playing, and I can’t really complain too much about being on the outside of the music scene as I’m too busy to keep abreast of it anyway.

When I started this blog I was a sub-editor with the Irish Examiner. From there I went to The National in the Middle East, before returning to further my education, doing a bit of teaching, and returning to the Examiner as chief sub-editor, a post I have now held for more than two years. Where has that time gone? And not even the five, nearly six since I moved to the UAE, but the two since I rejoined the Examiner? My industry is barely the same, let alone the rest of the world. Even Superman and Batman have had a reboot in the last few years.

In between returning from the desert and now I got married, bought a house (and battled with Nama along the way), adopted two cats, and I’m soon to be a father for the first time. This has had the most profound effect on me. I’m very much looking forward to being a dad. In fact I can’t wait. But it makes me nervous, more because it’s a great unknown for me than because it’s a scary prospect. I hope I can be a good father to them and that they grow up happy and well. Certainly all of my instincts right now are focused on making sure they have everything they and my wife need. It’s a whole new set of skills that I need to master in double-quick time, and I’m not sure how to even go about starting. That said I know I’ll cope, and not because I have to but because I want to.

There’s so much to look forward to. Reading to them, playing with them, introducing them to the cats, teaching them the little things.  It’s also the final stage of growing up (as if getting married and buying a house weren’t grown-up things to do).   And yet it’s a new, life-affirming stage which doesn’t make me feel old so much as it makes me feel, well, happy.

So, if this is growing up, bring it on (but please make better music).

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