Full Circle

After a couple of hectic weeks; the Edmonton Triathlon Festical (World Cup/PATCO Paratri/National AG Sprint + Olympic) and Trimemphre (PATCO/CG Test Event/National LD Champs), neither of which are remotely close to home. and doing a commensurate amount of laundry I can finally sit down and write something.  One thing comes to mind being at the Elite races.  It doesn't matter how fit you are as an age-grouper (and I like to think I can hold my own), being in an Elite TZ or briefing makes you feel old, fat, slow and short!  As much as I'd like to write about the races, and I'm sure I will, something else comes to mind tonight.

I had a pleasant ride along the Rails-To-Trails yesterday afternoon in the rain, which felt nice and refreshing after a couple of weeks baking in 30C sunshine in three timezones.  Part of the trail reminded me a little of Hawksworth Woods in Horsforth, where I grew up (Horsforth, not the woods), and more specifically hanging out there on a Friday night after school with Peter and Ben and Helen and Vickie.  Peter and Ben and I hung out there because the Woods were at the end of Ben's street.  They were of course, also at the end of Vickie's street.  Which was convenient,  Vickie was, of course, my first girlfriend, something which may or may not have something to do with hanging out in Hawksworth Woods after school on a Friday night.  

Such an 80s flashback might not have gone farther than a couple of kilometres worth of reminisces but it was reinforced by my iPod throwing up Crazy For You on my run tonight.




80s doomed.

This, of course, has me watching 80s teen movie Pretty In Pink tonight, but only because in some astonishing oversight (and absence from the two-for-$10 rack at HMV) I don't have Breakfast Club. Ah, Molly Ringwald.  She's only a year older than me and as the line in the movie goes "You know what an older women does for me?" "Yeah, changes your diapers", which may be a kink too far.  Victoria Pendleton, on the other hand, is ten years younger than me and whilst I wouldn't kick her out of bed for having a squeaky bottom bracket I suspect she may be a bit high maintenance.  And not high maintenance in the sense of changing the chain every 1000 kilometers.

Plus Pretty In Pink has one of my favorite scenes ever, the Duckie/Otis/Trax Records scene

Surely the only song/lip-synch scene to even come close would be Scarlett Johanssen doing The Pretenders Brass In Pocket in Lost In Translation.

But one digresses,

Pretty In Pink was what, 1986?  About two years after hanging out in Hawksworth Woods with Peter and Ben and hoping to see Vickie and Helen.  Co-incidently, Son#1is now 14.  If the Elites made me consider my advancing senescence, then the memories of being 14 and the summer holidays and the realization that my son is now 14 and it's the summer holidays have done me in for sure.  

I realise that after fourteen years of controlling his life, that by stealth now I (and by extension we) do not any longer. If I was doing things my parents were unaware of at 14, I'm sure he is.  Life has come full circle for me.  If the goal of parenting, in a strictly Darwinian sense, is to raise your brood to a point of self-sufficiency, then I think it's mission accomplished. Sure, so Son#2 can microwave a mean curry but he still struggles with the real world.  Son #1 is practically there already.  So he struggles with math but when was the last time your life depending on a derivative?   Maybe it's a tad too early to bring me my ice-floe but I think you should get some cables on it and start the tow, I'll be needing it soon enough.   

In Pretty In Pink Iona wishes that we started old and got younger.  I'm not sure that I would like to relive some of the experiences of the past 28 years between Hawksworth Woods and Halifax.   Still, I wish him well as he embarks on his own journey and I hope that he will look back as fondly on the summer of 2012 as I do on the summer of 1984.

On that note, and sticking with the Pretty In Pink theme, depending on how you're feeling (fondly  remembering prom or mawkishly contemplating your mortality) you may go out with OMD's If You Leave or The Association's Cherish.  It's your choice.....

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