Feeling Strange

Feeling Strange

Lately I've been feeling strange. I'm not sure if it's a physiological
or neurological problem and I don't know the cause. The closest I can
get to describing the sensation is a feeling of nervousness; a jittery
feeling which develops in the pit of my stomach and bubbles up through
my blood like nitrogen through the body of a diver that has risen to
the surface too fast. Less painful, no doubt, but disconcerting
nonetheless. Some days it's a wave of energy, adrenaline I suppose,
which washes up my spine to tingle the base of my skull.

Perhaps it's a mid-life thing, a sudden increase in hormone levels, or
those I already have deciding it's time to boogie. I doubt it though,
as far as I'm aware I haven't shown the usual signs of such a crisis. I
haven't started fantasising about my daughter's girl friends, I don't
lust after Kylie Minogue or Britney Spears, I don't take an unhealthy
interest in 'lad's mags', which, in my opinion, fall into the bounds of
soft-pornography (why do the publishers of these journals think we are
all preoccupied with boobs?) I don't even want to spend my weekends
hacking a white, dimpled ball around. Neither can I blame mid-life on a
desire for fast cars - I've always had that - though the realisation of
owning one gets nearer the closer my children get to flying their
nest.

Perhaps mid-life crises take different guises and this is mine. I've
reached this point in my life relatively unscathed; the death of one
parent, two marriages and the birth of three healthy and well-balanced
children. My relationship with my wife is very strong and loving, the
family is close-knit, caring and stable. We've had our share of ups and
downs, as most families do, but I have no doubts about the prospective
longevity of our marriage. We're rich in our health and happiness if
not monetarily, but we certainly aren't devoid of disposable cash
either. We enjoy at least one family holiday a year and my wife and I
occasionally escape the confines of home and the clamour of our
children on weekend breaks.

It could be my occupation. I do feel stifled in a dead-end job. I
didn't use to feel this way about what I do. I'd tell my friends and
acquaintances my job title and they'd be surprised: 'Oh,' they'd say,
'and what does that entail?' But any attempt to describe what I
actually did during my working day would leave them with a dreamy
expression which I used to believe was awe. I realise now that I'd
merely baffled them beyond belief. I suppose any job becomes boring
after twenty years or so, but it's the only thing I'm qualified to do
and it pays too well for me to risk my livelihood by trying something
different. The country's failing economy may force my hand, though as
far as I'm aware, my contract is secure. These days who can tell? I
work in the financial heart of the country, a district where the words
'job' and 'life' used to be synonymous. Mind you, 'life' doesn't mean
life anymore: a convicted murderer sentenced to 'life' can be back out
on the streets after five years, if he's a good boy in jail, and a 'job
for life', especially in the City, may last only until the next merger,
down-sizing or outsourcing deal.

My office overlooks a large area of open ground, not exactly a park,
but large enough for three huge, white marquees to be pitched. They're
used for a variety of social events throughout every summer. Just as
the grounds-man has nurtured the grass back to a green and luscious
carpet, the marquees reappear. He must have a strong disposition not to
weep at the yellow patches that remain once the tents have been
dismantled. At the moment there's also a small fun fair camped
alongside the marquees and today there appears to be an 'It's a
Knockout' type competition taking place. There are large numbers of
people, dressed in a variety of lurid tee shirts all emblazoned with
different company logos, taking part in the sort of corporate mayhem
(team building?) which I thought went out of fashion in the nineties.
The games seem to consist of trying to carry a ball or rubber ring
over, under and through a number of blow-up constructions some of which
look like bouncy castles, others like giant toothbrushes with
multi-coloured bristles waving in the breeze. There are also teams of
people racing to manoeuvre air-filled treadmills along narrow paths,
one of the team having to run inside the treadmill looking, for all the
world, like a mouse on speed. It looks hard, sweaty work and, with so
many teams taking part, absolute pandemonium. Eddie Waring and Stuart
Hall would have loved this.

For the bravest employees there's also the chance to bungee-jump off a
platform suspended from a tall crane. The drop is a long one; my office
is on the seventh floor and the platform is at eye-level. There's no
way you'd get me out there. It's not that I'm afraid of heights, it's
how hard the ground would feel if I hit it from that distance, the
thought of how big the crater would be.

I remember a holiday as a child somewhere on the Welsh coast. The town
was overlooked by an elevated headland, reached either by a stiff climb
or a ride in a cable car, which was peppered with hundreds of small
rocks, many of which had been collected and used to build cairns or
placed in geometric patterns. Some formed names and sentences, several
of which were obscene. As my mum and dad sat in the cafeteria sharing a
pot of insipid tea (this was long before coffee became potable in such
places) I wandered off and collected my own pile of rocks. After
leaving my name spelled out in lumps of granite, I sat on the edge of a
cliff and watched the waves below hit the wall which protected a
sea-front car park. I don't know how high the exposed cliff was, I felt
no fear at the time, swinging my legs above the precipice and looking
down as toy-sized cars manoeuvred in and out of their white-lined
parking spaces. It was only later, back at sea level, stepping into my
dad's car in the same car park and looking up at the pinpoint spot were
I'd sat a few hours previously that I realised how foolish I'd been. I
could easily have fallen, a slight stumble on the rocky outcrop and I
would have been plastered all over the car park's tarmac surface; my
name left in rocks, my body in a splatter of blood and gore. It made me
shiver with fright and sweat with stupidity. It's a feeling that I
haven't forgotten. I've been afraid of heights ever since.

There's a young girl about to take the plunge now. She's in her early
twenties and looks incredibly frail and delicate from where I'm
watching as she slowly rises on the metal platform, two helpers making
sure her harness is properly secured. Once the platform is stationary
and after only the briefest of delays, during which I suppose the girl
is given the chance to change her mind, she turns to face her two
helpers, back exposed to the fifty metre fall. And there, just as she
leans backwards from the platform, just as she begins to drop and the
umbilical coil of elastic rope begins to feed away. There&;#8230;
that is the emotion that I feel constantly, that stomach-wrenching
sensation she must feel as she drops backwards into the abyss.

Now that I've managed to hone the definition of my problem, perhaps I
can discover its root and begin to address a solution. But, as they
say, that's another story.