The continued ageing process has been occupying me for the majority of this weekend. Between my fatigue at a busy, stressful work week and my diabetes not behaving it as it should, yesterday vanished between extensive bouts of sleep, three separate shopping trips, and my girlfriend being the wonderful, loving human that she is. This might not seem like such a big deal, but it was only a short few years ago not one person who could claim friendship with me would find this anything but utterly preposterous.
If I had such a thing as a free Saturday, not travelling around the country to see friends or working at a convention or somesuch, I would normally spend it mainlining movies or TV, be it on DVD or PC. Watching a whole TV or film DVD box set never seemed a herculean challenge, nor something unusual. Caffeine and fast food fuelled hours of watching, something that has gone on since I was old enough to use my parents’ video rental card. It was a perfectly normal part of who I was. Most of all, it allowed me to amass the knowledge that has since come to fuel my professional skill-set, a mixed blessing, but still a blessing in my eyes.
Life is so different now. Diabetes Type 2, a loving girlfriend and a life together with her under one roof, have made me re-assess what my priorities are in life. I may love science fiction in all its forms, but in the end, we live here and now under the same sky, all affected the same way by the passing of time. There are things I’ve wanted to see, things I’ve wanted to do that I always thought there would be time to do. Being diagnosed with a hereditary fatal disease puts everything in perspective, if you avoid denial, and I’ve come to realise that, in the end, however high I revere the art of storytelling, whatever the narrative, however important I think it is to living to be able to tell each other stories in all their permutations, communicating with each other, from past ages, to future ages, there are, by default, more important things in life.
This one’s for you, Kim.
“And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love
You make”
The End – The Beatles, 1969
It's All In The Caffeine 