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As I hurtle towards sixty and suddenly realise that you can't ever go back and experience youth again (why did nobody warn me?) I am wondering if I made the most of my short crack at being alive.
Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty satisfied with the way things have turned out and love what my life has become, being a father and artisanal comedian turning out bespoke comedy to only the most discerning of patrons, but I wonder if I lived enough.
Should I have taken drugs on more than four occasions? Should I have had a less vanilla sex life (I am not going to say I didn't spread myself around, but it was pretty much all the standard, non-controversial stuff)? Should I have been more prepared to stay up all night rather than getting tired and bored by 1am (unless I was playing Civilization in my flat - then I could do three days with basically no sleep)?
Was there more fun to be had if I was less insecure, less concerned about imposing myself on people, socially awkward and prone to anxiety that made me bolt from potential fun? Should I have worked less hard and found my own Richard Herring who was so determined to make a success of his career that he'd stay up (again into the night if it was work) doing all the grunt work whilst I went out and got fucked up and still took all the credit?
Why was I such a goody-goody (mostly- though occasionally the stress of everything would mean I got pissed and behaved like a fucking idiot)? Why didn't I do all the stupid things I should actually have been doing when I was a teenager or in my early twenties? Why didn't I network better? (I am pretty sure that me shying away from any occasion when people were taking cocaine had a serious impact on my 1990s career). Why was I such a buzz kill and a dweeb?
Sure all those things have led to me being the mildly successful artisan comedian that I currently am and being forced to go alone due to my reticence to be with others has led me down the path where I am blogging, podcasting, talking to myself in a field or talking to puppets in my attic. You'd have none of this if I'd been cool or together or anything more than outwardly confident.
But like I say it's less about work and more about whether I should have enjoyed being young more.
It would probably have killed me - and I had an extended childhood and lived an exciting life by most people's standards. I guess what I am getting at is I regret my reticence, my awkwardness, my sensitivity, my tendency to retreat and being a bit of a square goody goody who somehow got himself into a sort of rebellious career in spite of himself.
I think my parents passed on to me a work ethic and moral system that made it hard for me to enjoy some of the positive aspects of my job. Whilst other comedians worked for 20 minutes at night and partied for the rest of the day, I felt guilty if I wasn't at least trying to do some work. And it was of course that drive and determination that has meant I have had the kind of limited but kind of fantastical success that I've enjoyed.
I'd been listening to Pierre Novellie's book about autism and despite recognising tiny parts of myself in some of it, I think sadly I am the only non-autistic comedian. Which means my problems aren't a condition, I'm just an arsehole. Pierre suggests that he wouldn't want to be cured of autism even if that was possible and the book is about understanding yourself and getting on with things. But I absolutely would loved to have been cured of my social awkwardness and there was a cure, it was alcohol. But sadly that came with other side effects.
I can't regret too much. It's been an incredible life so far and has I'm in the best bit of it now (depending on your definition of best). I wish I'd taken more risks and I wish I'd not worried about the things I worried about and had been more confident. But if I had been those things I wouldn't have been me, I suppose.
It's too late. I'm basically 60 and I read today that at 44 and 60 you have ageing spurts so I have that to look forward to. It actually makes me laugh to think I am as old as I am. I was walking around in shorts and a T-shirt today and feeling like a 14 year old and then thought about how old I actually am and how weird it would have been for a 57 year old man to look like me when I was a kid. And I just laughed. Getting old is ridiculous and funny and as long as I don't look at myself in a mirror I can pretend I'm still young.
I'd like another go round in a way, but then again, no I really wouldn't. We should be given two lives so we can experience being Me1 and Me2. And then if one of you dies because you took too many arm heroins and had sex with a bison then the other one learns a valuable lesson, but at least you travelled both roads.
