Daisy

Just past Midnight. New Years Eve.

I'm holding tight onto the hand of my boy listening to my father make a
speech. It's 40 years since he married my mother you see (give or take
a week).

Happy Ruby New Year.



One of the lessons I give to the younger boys in my classes is about
what is the SAME and what is DIFFERENT. Sometimes I feel that I need
that lesson myself because I am often so busy celebrating things that
have changed in my life that sometimes I don't think I give enough time
to things that have stayed the same.



So, the boy is different, and a wonderful different at that... but my
parents and the people who love us at their New Year party are the
same, the same as they have been my whole life, and the same as they
have been to each other for 40 years.... and they are wonderful. And
Christmas was wonderful and the same as ever it has been (There must
have been a time when I didn't get pissed and fall over on boxing day
surrounded by old school friends - but I honestly don't remember it).



But then you panic- don't you? Because the problem with things that are
the same is that you take them for granted, and although in the tiny
little murky corner in your mind you know that one day your school
friends won't get pissed because they have babies, and one day (god
forbid) you won't go home because there is nobody there... still, at
least you have this year, this second, this moment in time which is as
it always was. Forever.



...and then somebody touches your arm and you turn to them and kiss
them, and your tummy melts and you wonder, for a second, if maybe in 40
years you might not have your own party, and you might not make your
own speech, and you won't remember a time without that person and that
different has become the same.



I have picked up that 20six is going to be different too... well, I
guess thats OK. At home I have a small pile of dusty covered diaries
crammed with teenage angst, university trials and 20 something dreams.
So when 20six changes, then I guess that I will find a new book... open
a new page and turn to a nice clean sheet... because although the SAME
can be wonderful... sometimes DIFFERENT is OK too.

There endeth the lesson.

3.1.06 10:58