I shouldn’t get all melancholy on a day like Valentine’s Day, that wonderful celebration of love and a glorious excuse to have too much to drink (not that I normally need an excuse), but somehow I do. Perhaps it is because as one gets older, the days and weeks seem to pass by so much quicker and then you see, through the old age of others, that the great days don’t last forever.
Seeing all the messages on social networks has warmed the soul. You don’t have to express your love for someone on a public forum if you don’t want to – I think my partner already knows how I feel about her, even if I did forget to buy a card today! – but there has been something quite wonderful about them today. After all, the British are not exactly known for revealing their feelings in public!
It is not my new line of work that has changed my attitude to life for I have always believed in both seizing the day as well as making plans for the future; there has to be a combination of both. When I was young, and in fact not so young, I thought I was indestructible, that I alone would live forever. When bad things happened to other people, when people caught awful illnesses and even died, these were things that happened to other people. That’s not how I feel anymore.
Valentine’s Day to me is an opportunity to catch my breath. In my current form of semi-retirement, having forsaken the day-to-day drudgery of full time work, the speed of life has definitely slowed. Having more time to be with the people I love and to do the things I want has been as important as anything I have ever done. I understand people who enjoy working long, hard hours, with minimal time off because if you have a job you love, you have done better than I ever managed until now.
My perspective changed many years ago when as part of my job with the DWP saw me visiting people in their homes. I saw people with terminal illnesses, with debilitating and deteriorating conditions and some who had nothing in their lives. This was in the 1990s and things were better for vulnerable people back then. I saw people who had lost loved ones and felt they had nothing left to live for. As the years went by, so many people’s lives barely resembled the ones they enjoyed when they were young and, dare I say it, and in love. This is how it can all end. Eventually, no matter how good the story, it ends in sadness.
I am a lucky man, luckier than most. I escaped the rat race, finally found what I always wanted to do and all the while I lived with my best friend, my soul mate and – whisper it – the love of my life.
All the money in the world simply cannot buy what the lucky ones have.
As a certain popular beat combo outfit from Liverpool once said, “I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love.”
