a new experience

i'd come to believe that at the age of forty-one i'd probably run out of new experiences or rites of passage - they become fewer and far between as the years pass by at an alarmingly ever-increasing speed

like all of my peers i've been through most of the major ones, which i list in chronological order - sex, passing a driving test (after the second attempt), leaving home, college, the insanitary horror that is a major rock festival, discovering the joys of illegal substances, traipsing round europe with a heavy backpack and staying in accommodation that even ray mears would think twice about, getting a job, starting a new life in another country, sharing a long-term relationship, the realisation that you haven't the faintest idea which party to vote for in a general election (that inane, grinning tory masquerading as the saviour of the labour party or that smarmy, vomit-inducing, smug bastard now leading that bunch of wankers otherwise known as the conservative party) and, that despite the socialist sympathies of your formative years, you've turned into a possession-loving capitalist with conservative tendencies (conservative with a small 'c') like the rest of the class of society of which, to your horror, you have become a member by virtue of your profession, and, even more upsetting, the realisation that you've been this same person for your whole adult life and have just been kidding yourself for all these years....etc

so imagine my surprise now i find myself living through a completely new and fresh experience which, now it's here and will soon be gone, i will never have again