Colm O'Regan: My ear hair and emoji use is telling me I'm getting old 

Pic: Roger Kenny

The week of a birthday (don’t worry, it’s never too late for a gift) is always a good time for introspection. At 44, I’m definitely near/at/over the halfway hump. So I thought I’d check in with myself to see how preparations for the second half are going. They seem to be well underway with obvious signs of second-half-ness, so it looks like it’s all downhill here from here. Indeed, the first classic sign is saying “it’s all downhill from here”.

It’s only approaching halfway that I’ve started thinking about half-ways. And that there is a downward slope. Who knows what twists and turns are left? Especially with an absolute maverick like me whose socks rarely match. But deep down, I think we know, physical ability, ambition –their trajectory is downward.

Don’t believe the hype, said Public Enemy in 1988. But I miss the hype. I miss getting irrationally excited about new music. Obsessed. Liking an entire album, even the self-indulgent bits. Have the hype receptors in my brain declined? I try, I really do, to listen to new music. But it’s just not landing. Is there nothing new under the sun or have I closed my years? I’m not saying that I’m telling young people to “turn down that oul noise” but I am leaving comments underneath music videos on YouTube that say: “Old school. The kids NEED to listen to this.”

My ear hair is telling me that half-time is over. I’m weirdly proud of my downy lobes. They are fascinating. Why would I need more hair in my ears? Is it being stored for a later use that modern life has obscured? Fluttering your tufts at rivals to establish dominance? Boringly it’s just variations in testosterone which somehow makes your scalp hair thinner but gives you eyebrows and ears like an owl.

I’m getting defensive about things I never cared about. Just because they’ve been identified as part of my generation. I used to hate the cry-laugh emoji. People just don’t laugh until they cry, that much. But then I heard that Young People were slagging off My People. I became very protective of the little yellow face shedding tears at the unexpected hilarity of it all. Now I’m using it with pride. You won’t catch me putting a tombstone or a skull in a WhatsApp to tell people I’ve laughed so much I have died and am now deceased. I am very much alive and wiping away the tears.

Just about though. It goes without saying I wouldn’t trust my body to go to the shop for me. The little muscle tears that just seem part of life now have bred a lot of doubt. I used to pull big athletic muscles like hamstrings in glorious battles on the (five-aside astro) pitch. It was worth it to save my team. Now I’ll twang a muscle in the back of my hand making tea. And all the other muscles in the muscles’ union have served strike notice many times. There are all the other signs too.

I’m standing around with my hands clasped behind my back, switching off lights BECAUSE THERE’S NO ONE IN THE ROOM and worrying where I’ll get parking.

So far, so curmudgeonly. And yet, there’s one thing that makes the second-half fun. The replays.

Revisiting things from the first half. The places, books, music, films, and TV but with new eyes. Bringing the children to places from the past makes me see them through their eyes and burnishes the memories. Watching the Rockford Files and remembering my father loved Jim Rockford’s sportscoats, or rereading books and remembering the First Half Me who ploughed through them. The albums replayed but also the music from now they inspired. The Second Half isn’t just a decline. There’s renewal too.