I’m a billion birds in

There’s a lovely proud smile that happens when people who are over eighty and people who are almost six tell you how old they are, have you noticed? Sometimes you can see them trying in vain to swallow the smile because they don’t want you to be embarrassed at your own inferior age. The rest of us don’t tend to open with age-based material, though. I wonder if perhaps we should find a replacement? Some marker of where we’re at in life, something more meaningful than hello nice to meet you I’m proud to announce I’m forty-seven.

Public Service Announcement: you’ve aged beautifully. Or disgracefully. Or Amusingly. You choose.

Imagine if someone made a short film of how many times you’ve fixed someone else a drink. Maybe you work in hospitality and it’s not a short film, it’s a feature. Even if it’s one every, say, weekday, that’s five a week multiplied by 52 weeks a year that’s 260 per year. That’s a statistic worth boasting about. Hi, I’m Lorin, I’m twelve thousand four hundred and eighty lovingly made cups of tea old.

Very nice to meet you, I’m two rambunctious dogs and four intelligent cats old.

Hello, I’m Lorin, I’ve spent approximately one hundred hours in parked cars giggling or deep in conversation because the conversation got so good.

Hello I’ve read more books than there are countries to travel to.

Hello I can’t promise I’ll remember your name but I’ll remember almost all the stories you tell me, sometimes better than you will.

Hello I’m so pleased to meet you, I’ve been the big hand two smaller hands have looked for and found in the dark.

I don’t want to boast but I’ve done a lot of deckchair work. Just me and a book, the soles of my bare feet on the wooden slat thing of the deckchair and maybe not a lot of book being read at all times if we’re entirely honest.

Hello I’m several naps into this month how are you?

Greetings, I’ve invested absolute weeks of my life looking for things that were somewhere obvious. Last week I went to the shops for a second time because I’d forgotten to get a packet of pasta someone in the family had specifically requested the first time I went to the shops, but the seance time, when I got to the shop, I received a phone call, which is another thing I tend to invest time in, and then I’m not sure what happened but I returned home with a cardboard box full of things but absolutely no pasta. I searched the house and the car and the house again and then the car again. And there, under the passenger seat in the car… was the pair of glasses I’ve been looking for since August.

Hi nice to meet you I’m nine million podcasts old.

Nice to meet you I don’t know how many steps I’ve done today but I can tell you some of them were skipping.

I’m a billion birds in!

I’m a swim in the sea in January at least once for most of my life and it’s very nice to make your acquaintance.

I’m ninety-seven billion hours in to a lifetime of watching Bob Mortimer drive David Mitchell utterly spare on Youtube in episodes of Would I Lie To You that I’ve never even watched the full episodes of.

I’m a two  audiobooks a month kind of gal.

Nice to meet you, I’m constantly surprised when turning corners to find myself absolutely nowhere close to the place I was entirely certain I was right in the middle of.

I’ve remembered and forgotten the lines to more than twenty theatrical productions.

Hi! I’m Lorin and I’ve sulked for days, probably weeks, possibly even months. Couldn’t tell you what about, but I’m absolutely certain it was justified and an entirely appropriate use of my time, why, do you disagree? Want me to sulk about it?

I’ve spent days planning the downfall of the enemies of my friends. Results have been middling.

I’ve enjoyed many delightful ice creams and one extremely ordinary one but I think the machine must have been broken.

Maybe you’re none of these things. Maybe you’re one thousand excellently packed suitcases old. Fourteen months of knitting. An entire semester of rosebush trimming. Five years worth of  familial conversational reassurance. I reckon if I declared my age like this, I’d be pleased as punch.

This was printed in Ed 754 of The Big Issue. Please support your local vendor.