Lust for Life

After suffering from depression with my OCD for the past few years, it was difficult to truly enjoy things fully but recently I have a renewed interest. This led me to thinking about that feeling of exhilaration that I used to get as a child for holidays, events or just doing something incredibly daft that I suspected I would regret later – like jumping off a moving swing.

When I was a child everything thrilled me, the mere thought of Christmas was enough to make me so excited that I would end up feeling ill. During my childhood we used to go on a bus trip every summer to an exotic location, usually in the North of England, such as South Shields or Whitley Bay with a number of families in the local area. It was quite literally the social event of the year and we would talk about it for months prior to the trip – where we would go when we got there, what we would spend our holiday money on, what rides we would go on at the fair. The anticipation of the trip was euphoric! Admittedly, at the age of 33 I am sat here thinking ‘It was just a day trip to a seaside town or theme park’ but it seems really difficult to recapture that feeling I had when I was a child. The night before the trip we couldn’t sleep, my sister and I would be discussing all the cool things that we were going to do the next day and wondering what the trip would be like. Invariably we would clamber onto the coach, arrive at the destination, eat a ridiculously excessive amount of Candy floss, chips, sweets etc, go on a huge number of rides, spend our holiday money on something frivolous and at least one person would get ill on the coach on the way home. It doesn’t sound all that glamorous but it really was fantastic to look forward to those yearly trips.

Another thing that always seemed to send us all into a frenzy as children was the introduction of something new and cool. For example, as a child, obtaining a new thing was amazing, whether it was sweets, a pogo stick, a new drink – the sheer excitement of talking about it at school the next day was awesome. When I was child there was a shop near our house that always seemed to sell drinks and sweets that other shops could only dream of – it’s odd really as I presume they all went to the same place to buy their stock so the other shops had the option of seeming innovative but they didn’t seem willing to take the chance that the kids wouldn’t like the products. Anyway, we used to go to this shop roughly every week and on one occasion there was a drink called ‘Zero Gravity’ – it was in a clear can and it was flavoured water with colourful jelly balls suspended in it. When I saw that can, I knew I wanted it, my pocket money almost leapt out of my pocket unbidden as if aware of my need to share this cool drink with my friends. As soon as I bought that drink I hurried to one of my friends houses to show him it and we opened it almost in awe, sipping it as if it were nectar. It was so exciting, knowing that drink was new and special, oddly I have never been able to replicate that feeling with any other drink including root beer, hubba bubba drinks and milk in a can.

When I was a child I had an uncanny ability to find things, maybe I spent most of my time looking at the ground, but if you lost anything in an area you could pretty much guarantee that I would find it. I found money in the street, jewellery in fields, a fossil on the beach; Wherever I went I usually ended up finding something. This ability has been enormously useful over the years and definitely explains my entry into a career of software testing. Anyway, do you remember the fizzy drinks yo-yos that you could buy in the shops in the 80s? There was also a competition to win a gold Coca Cola yo-yo if you found a ‘G’ beneath the ring pull of your drink, it wasn’t real gold or anything, it was the simple fact that it was special. I wanted that yo-yo so badly, I drank so much fizzy juice it was unreal and, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I really don’t like fizzy drinks. Still to no avail, I couldn’t find a ‘G’ under my ring pulls.

One day, after drinking some fizzy juice and being disappointed once again, I was walking home from the shops and on the floor I spotted a ring pull that was bent in two with a tantalizing mark peeking out over the fold. I could scarcely bring myself to pick it up for fear of crushing disappointment. With trepidation I reached down and picked it up and there, on the ring pull was a ‘G’. You know, it may sound corny but I almost cried with joy – as small a thing as it may seem now, the fact that I was one step closer to that gold yo-yo was joyous! The next step was to track down the meeting point where the person who was giving out the yo-yos would be, they travelled from town to town and you had to perform a trick as well as give them the ring pull to get the yo-yo. Now, in those days we didn’t have access to the internet (listen to that, how old do I sound?!?) and so finding where the yo-yo could be collected was tricky. I think my dad read in the newspaper where they would be and he promised to take me to town on that day to pick it up. The excitement of getting that yo-yo was almost unbearable, we discussed it at school, at home and I clung desperately to that ring pull for fear that someone would take it from me and collect it themselves.

The day arrived and it was time to go into town to collect my prize. My friend Kelly was a bridesmaid at a wedding and I went to see her first, she looked so pretty and I remember my Dad patiently waiting while I chatted to Kelly at the church before I followed him further into town. The anticipation was intense and my Dad kept going into shops to run errands and I could feel myself getting more and more impatient, just wanting to know for sure that I would get the yo-yo. Finally we came to the place where the yo-yos were being given out to the lucky few. I nervously walked up to the guy and did a trick with my everyday yo-yo and he clapped and handed over my prize. I know it probably sounds silly but I was so happy, had Facebook existed then I would have been on there enthusing to all my friends about how wonderful it felt to have that gold yo-yo.

It’s so odd that moments like that have really sustained me in times of misery, that sheer joy over something as simple as a yo-yo is something I have very rarely been able to replicate in my adult life, and I have really tried, believe me.

When did I become so jaded and tired that the simple things in life no longer had any joy? It’s as I someone slowly turned down the volume on my happy mp3 player while I wasn’t looking and now, although lots of things make me happy and excited – it doesn’t compare to the heady rapture of simple things in childhood.

For example, we used to go to theme parks when I was a kid, Lightwater Valley and Flamingo Land were our particular favourites, and at one park they had something called the Hell slide or the Death slide or something equally terrifying. I had seen it a number of times and was way too scared to go on it but on one occasion I climbed up the ladders, stairs and other objects to get to the top. This slide was almost vertical, it probably wasn’t that steep but as a child your brain does tend to remember these things in a more worrying way. I peeked over the top of that slide and I really didn’t think I had the nerve to do it. I climbed up and swung my legs over the edge. I must have sat there for around 10 minutes, knowing that it would be exhilarating to slide down but also knowing how scary it was and how I could injure myself – again the anticipation was both exciting and petrifying. Someone came over and asked me what I was waiting for and when I explained that I was afraid they simply pushed me and I slid down the monumentally steep slide in seconds. It was an amazing feeling and again, one that has been ferociously difficult to replicate.

In my adult life I have experienced much happiness, anticipation, excitement and joy – my wedding day for instance – but I have always found it hard to recapture that head spinning, heart pounding lust for life that most people seem to have as children. I don’t think it is lost, just well hidden.

Now my depression is lifting, I’m looking forward to discovering it again :)