It’s about time I spent more time on my life
Penultimate. It’s such a posh word for – almost – coming to the end of something. In a running race, the penultimate line-crosser doesn’t even win the wooden spoon whereas, in a good book, the story arc reaches its satisfying conclusion in the penultimate chapter.
Murderers are unmasked, mysteries are solved, the lost are found, unrequited loves are consummated, and dastardly foes finally get their comeuppance, leaving the last chapter free for the tying up of loose ends and pithy parting observations.
This is my penultimate column for the Sunday Star-Times, the last-but-one in a 16-year run. In a foolhardy career move for any freelancer, I’ve jacked in my job as your weekly correspondent in the wops to spend more time with my family.
Are you crazy? I spend enough time with those sods already. Hell no, I want to spend more time with myself now that both my kids are at school.
‘‘Being alone and sitting with our thoughts,’’ a perspicacious philosopher once pondered, ‘‘can lead to growth and realisations that are rare in our everyday busy lives.’’
Who knew Kourtney Kardashian could be so deep and meaningful? I actually meant to quote Socrates: ‘‘Beware the barrenness of a busy life.’’
In every group of friends, there’s a busy person. The one who’s always a bit frazzled, always running late, always juggling dates, times, deadlines and dramas. Here’s what I’ve learned this year: it’s tiresome always being busy.
In my career as a jobbing journalist, I’ve rarely been a nine-to-fiver. I was side-hustling since before it was even a thing, combining television and radio shows with PR and charity gigs, magazine editing, feature writing, the speaking circuit and penning books. (Did I mention my latest? Thanks to you, dear readers, Damson: From Hedgerow to Harvest, is already a bestseller in Hunua. It’s in a league of its own. No other book about damsons can compare.)
In 2002, when I was first commissioned to write a weekly column for the Sunday StarTimes, I was 28-years-old and in the throes of an early midlife crisis. I’d just been made redundant, and my 10-year relationship had hit the skids. I joined the gym, lost 15kg, found my mojo, bought a flash guitar and got a tattoo. (Thankfully, my pain threshold proved incompatible with my rebellious streak and so I merely sport a modest blue daisy on my right hip.)
Things were different back then. I could write 1200 words on anything from dahlias to decking and never once mention if I liked them or not. Reporting in the first person was frowned upon; we’d been trained to keep our opinions to ourselves. These days I’m happy to write about myself but, as I get older, I can’t see the point in courting controversy. I prefer pure belletristic bonhomie to being trolled.
Writing a weekly column is hard work. Not in the conventional sense, being neither factory-line monotony nor minimum-wage misery, but finding the words can be torturous. On Mondays, I think: what shall I write about? The thought nags at me like I nag at my husband when he cooks scrambled eggs in our supposedly nonstick frying pan, then leaves it in the sink ‘‘to soak’’.
On Tuesdays, I mull over a few ideas. On Wednesdays, I miss my deadline. On Thursdays, I thrash out a few paragraphs, fail to file and fire off an excuse-ridden email to the editor. On Fridays, usually around 3am, I go into panic mode and start writing in earnest.
For the past decade, I’ve mined my personal life for column fodder. Two weeks after I snagged my husband, in 2009, I impetuously declared: ‘‘I’ve met a man with land. The Hunk from Hunua has 20 hectares and a rather buff set of biceps, both of which will come in handy this week because I’ve bought him 95 fruit trees to plant.’’
A decade later, this column has outlived five cats, four roosters, two pet sheep and a kunekune pig, while our youngest child has grown from a foetus to a five-year-old. I’ve written about all of life’s major milestones: love, loss, births, breastfeeding, marriage. There’s nothing left to share, aside from menopause and death.
So I’m calling time.
In 2019, I want more time for the simple things in life. Time to pick up a book and devour it in one go instead of stealing a page here and there. Time to get fit, (try to) learn the guitar, bake better muffins for the kids’ school lunchboxes, declutter our kitchen cupboards and summit the laundry mountain in our bathroom. Time to listen to country music, binge-watch Outlander and rewild our farm for the One Billion Trees Programme.
Thanks for reading. It’s been swell. And don’t fret. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, I’ll be back. Next week, in fact, when I’ll tie up loose ends and make a few pithy parting observations.