Getting On

My friend says I look pouty, like I’ve had col­la­gen. I know she’s being kind. It really just looks like I’ve been punched in the mouth and my mar­riage needs inter­ven­tion. For the record, my mar­riage doesn’t need inter­ven­tion. I just need to learn to surf instead of face plant­ing into the sand. But dam­mit, when did learn­ing some­thing new become so hard? It‘s been 11 months now, and instead of hav­ing it nailed, I’m being nailed.

Surf­ing is the first thing I’ve tried to teach myself as an adult. In the accu­mu­lated hours I’ve spent being tumbled in the white­wash, I’ve come to the con­clu­sion that there’s a dir­ect cor­rel­a­tion between get­ting older and a dimin­ish­ing capa­city to learn. Remem­ber strug­gling to ride a bike? No. That’s because it was no thang. Remem­ber learn­ing to read? No thang. Maybe kids can absorb bet­ter because someone else is run­ning the logist­ics of their lives. Or maybe it’s because a hun­dred fail­ures haven’t caused fear to fully form just behind their eye­balls. Or maybe it’s simply because we’re designed to learn when we’re new, not when we’re 30 years used.

That real­isa­tion is a sock to the gut. I’m no longer the kid with the infin­ite hori­zon of pos­sib­il­it­ies. The kid paddled out, turned 30 in the pro­cess, real­ised the hori­zon actu­ally has an end, saw the end in the dis­tance, and felt just a little scared. Sud­denly, you real­ise you’re get­ting on. You’ve lost some things for ever. Like the abil­ity to verb­al­ise text speak — OMG ROFL — without jeop­ard­ising your next pay review. Or the per­mis­sion to fall asleep any­where, at any time, while you’re sober. Or to climb on someone’s lap and stick your fin­gers in their mouth.

If what I’m exper­i­en­cing is a quarter-life crisis — and FFS I hate that phrase — then the good news is I’m already over it. I don’t believe them when they say the best days of my life are behind me. ‘Best‘ is not a word I asso­ci­ate with more than a dec­ade of overt bul­ly­ing in the school­yard. Or 18 years of forced sobri­ety. Or the indig­nity of being groun­ded. ‘Best’ is yet to come. ‘Best’ is being able to say no when you want to. ‘Best’ is hav­ing the dis­cern­ment to pick friends who make you laugh, not make you look cool. ‘Best’ is mar­ry­ing the per­son who turns every day into a slee­p­over party. And ‘best’ is finally lik­ing the per­son in the mirror.

Still, none of this pop psy­cho­logy fixes my prob­lem of get­ting on my surf­board. You’ll have heard that rule about 10,000 hours of prac­tice right? Appar­ently, after that many hours of repeat, repeat, repeat, you‘ll mas­ter your task. I fig­ure I can spare two hours each week­end day after hanging the wash­ing and before mak­ing the din­ner. So, that’s four hours a week and — tak­ing off East­er and Christ­mas — that’s 100 hours a year. I’ll finally be get­ting up on my board in 2114.