There’s no-one else here, so who do you think I’m talking to? I’ve begun talking to myself and I’ve no idea when it started. “What have I come upstairs for?” Out loud and often without knowing that I’m doing it. Did it come with my grey hair, the wrinkles, or expanding waistline? Kids do it without embarrassment all of the time, they even have imaginary friends, but at my age? No, what I do is furtively look around me wondering if anyone heard me.
It doesn’t help that another of my signs of old age is that I have become very deaf and I’m not sure how loud I am speaking. Perhaps if I lived alone it would make more sense, but I don’t, I live with my very understanding wife. She is quite used to being asked if she has moved my watch/reading glasses etc. But now it’s me that I am speaking to.
The more I write my web logs to keep this old brain ticking over and I research a subject or recall something from my past for a story, I find myself chatting to myself and suddenly realise that I’m chatting loud and I’m guiltily looking around to make sure that I’m alone.
Oh my Lord, where do I go from here? Will I find myself dressed in Salvation Army couture pushing a stolen Waitrose trolley along the street as I hold loud, dribbling conversations with myself? Should I get myself a dog that can act as a ‘beard’ to hide behind? Nah! I’m a cat person and my cat always knew that I was weird. He was also totally irreplaceable. Sometimes now that he is no longer with us I find myself chatting to him. I just hope that no-one hears my conversations.
This morning, fortunately sitting alone in the sauna at the gym, I once again caught myself talking to myself out loud as I was planning my day – I stopped the conversation as soon as I realised that I was doing it again. Then I said to myself, out loud, “Bugger it! I’m old and I’m entitled to be a bit eccentric – I’m off to see The Wizard!
