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Howard Jones, remember him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-KW3Tp4W8

Sometimes that's just where I'm stuck.  1984, with all the haircuts, the clothes and the way we lived before the internet.  If the city centres look somewhat dreary, I suspect it's because they were.  Even looking back with the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia, it feels all a bit, well, sepia.  Colours weren't as bright back then.  Beige was where it was at.

Somehow, 1984 has become 20 years ago (let's not nit pick about the maths, eh).  Things are worse and better now.  Being, let's say 16 in 1984, as opposed to being 16 now, well, it's hard to say - there were a lot more restrictions and rules I think, back then.  There was less freedom to communicate, there was more pressure to be conventional.  There were definitely women's roles and men's roles, back in suburban middle class.  It didn't feel just middle class, it was middle everything.  But at 16 you were also allowed to make mistakes, allowed to be a child, learning, you weren't expected to be a small grown up with under sized grown up choices and decisions to manage.  Protected, perhaps.

I look at myself now, not just as middle aged, but somehow something else crept up on me.  Nearly 50.  How extraordinary is that?  It creeps up on me at odd times.  Those times when I wonder as I scamper along on the bike (these days do occasionally happen).  The technical descent I did on the rigid cross bike following two youngsters (these days that means under 40) down, holding my own.  Got to the bottom and thought, not bad for a woman pushing 50, eh?  I like to think I offer hope for the future.

I accept slowing down.  Not in the way of giving up or giving in or stopping trying.  Recovery is slow, from illness and from injury and there's a world where you suddenly need to adjust to making allowances for yourself and doing things differently in recuperation because otherwise, you simply don't recuperate.  Pushing through the pain, battling on, fighting it.  All that stuff is mostly on a collision course to a week in bed these days.  It's no longer logical.  So we accept, and embrace the slow times while we get ready for the time we can see in the distance, that time when we'll be pedalling madly again.