What is this feeling I’m having here, this feeling of . . . guilt? It must be an age thing. It feels quite new and different to me, anyway. I am feeling guilty – not so much for the things I’ve been doing (that kind of guilt I’m used to) but more for the things I haven’t done and which, at my age, am running out of time to do.
This particular brand of guilt is two-tiered. On one level, there is a lingering, underlying guilt for the big things that don’t get done, like buying a house, having kids, passing my driving test and doing that science degree I’ve always fancied.
That doesn’t mean I want to rush out and make it all happen. To be honest, I’m not actually that bothered about being able to drive, or owning a house. It would be brilliant to have kids, but only when the circumstances are right, and let’s just say that’s not going to be any time soon.
I would love to do a wee physics degree, but am more than happy just thinking about theatre for the moment – which is what I do most of the time at work.
The source of this low-level guilt is not so much a hankering for the things themselves, but a realisation that the option to do them may not always be there.
There is also the perception that by the age of 30, a girl – sorry, “woman” – should have reached a certain stage in her adult life and acquired and achieved certain things. This is a prescribed view, and certainly not one I agree with, or even remotely follow, but nevertheless, because lots of people do, part of me feels guilty for failing to measure up to it.
Whereas, previously, none of these things nagged or niggled me, now I have moments of thinking, “Should I not have learned how to use the oven by now? I have lived here for over a year. Is it because I’m an imbecile? Am I deficient?”, or “My wee brother and sister have been driving for almost 10 years and I still haven’t sat my test. At this rate, my baby nephew will be giving me lessons. Am I subnormal?”.
But that’s just the low-level big stuff. It’s like background-noise guilt and doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the high-pitched day-to-day stuff.
THESE wee guilt-tripping details grind on my mind like tinnitus and include everything from missing important bits of news to failing to persevere with yoga, Dostoyevsky and The Wire (the TV crime drama everyone raves about).
Not reading poetry usually qualifies as background-noise guilt because I feel somehow obliged to but have no particular interest in doing so. However, now and again, I’ll discover some beautiful poems that lift my heart and move my very soul, then regret never giving the time of day to them.
Above all, I despair of all the unfinished novels that lie scattered messily around my house, as if putting them back on the shelf meant admitting defeat. It’s like being surrounded by piles of literary debt, never to be cleared.
I just don’t seem to have the head-space for novels these days – which really worries me. I’ve started to think my mind is disintegrating, my concentration span shrinking and that I might actually be going senile.
The truth is I have always started hundreds of books and only ever finish about half of them – there are so many books out there, if you read 100 pages and it’s still boring you rigid, why not ditch it and move on?
But, ironically, since I started reading a lot more for work, I get through far fewer books than I used to. I feel like I’ve somewhat lost the knack – or at least switched into a gear that’s less conducive to reading longer stints of prose.
WHEN I started writing columns and features, I set about reading acres of newspaper every week to keep myself up to speed.
In doing so, I developed a habit for skimming and absorbing details in short bursts, moving swiftly from topic to topic for the latest hot pickings and points of view.
This made me a bit of an ADHD reader, and I found reading books increasingly difficult.
Now that I am also a script reader for a couple of theatre companies and spend around three days a week solidly reading plays, my eyes get too tired to read books, especially in the evenings.
So I feel pretty guilty about all the novels I’m not reading and the ideas I skim over in newspapers.
Today, I devoted more attention to the story about wallabies getting high on opium and making cross circles on Australian farms than I did to Labour school reforms, or even Wimbledon.
Ridiculous – I am an adult with a professional obligation to stay abreast of current affairs. Smacked-up marsupials on the other side of the world should hardly be my focus.
As I write this, by the way, news of Michael Jackson’s death is streaming live across the news channels, with everyone from Uri Geller to Lisa Marie Presley giving their shocked responses.
It is very sad, and I do feel kind of guilty for not dedicating this column to such a historic event in our culture. However, I would have felt more guilty for staying up ’til all hours doing it when I haven’t begun to organise myself for going on holiday in the morning.
And, let’s face it, what can I say that a thousand other columnists won’t have already said by the time you read this.
For my tuppence worth, he was a hugely talented performer, an incredible dancer and a trail-blazing superstar. He may have been mired in scandal and tragically flawed but, even so, he was far too young to die.
On that note, there’s no time to waste feeling guilty for things I haven’t done. I’ll either do them or be done with them. Life’s too short.