I was talking to my Mother on the phone the other day, killing a bit of time between a medical appointment and starting work, and we were discussing my next tattoo: two magpies on my lower back, one perched on a lock and the other holding a key. It has to be two - one would be bad luck - and it's going to cover up an existing rather shitty tattoo which has been bugging me for the best part of the last ten years. I think it's going to be the biggest one I have done. Then I told her about the Elvish writing I want on my wrists, the two more piercings in my left ear and two in my right ear...I didn't mention the vertical clitoral hood piercing I will be getting (hopefully) in short order but only because she doesn't need to know that, but you get the gist.
And then I came out with something which surprised me a little bit:
"I want to have finished my body modifications by the time I'm 30, really."
I stopped in mid-sentence. Laughed. And said to my Mother something along the lines of "Most women want to have their first baby by the time they're 30, or have secured their ideal job, or got married. Me? I just want to have my tattoos and piercings right!". She laughed with me, and it was nice to know that my Mum isn't disappointed by my eccentricities. But it did get me thinking: why am I like that? Why does having children leave me, frankly, cold and a bit horrified? Why don't I care about getting married, or settling down, or having the 'normal' life my not-mother-in-law insists I secretly crave?
(Also, what's the deal with that? Why does she feel the need to tell me off whenever I have some new body mods? I'm a bloody adult, does she think I don't understand that tattoos are permanent?! And why is it so important to her that we fulfill the social contract and have a big, expensive party laden with religious connotations neither of us believe in - because god forbid if we got married she'd let us have a secular, dare I say, atheist ceremony - and quite frankly she's got eight grandkids already, she doesn't need any more!)
Anyway...what was I talking about? Oh yes. I guess I'm not an ordinary kitten. (Referring to myself as a kitten might be an indicator of that, too). I suppose the kids at school were right; I am a weirdo. But I think I'm okay with that. Pictures of my contemporaries' babies on That Social Network don't make my biological clock start ticking, nor do they make me determined never to grow up and be arrested-development Kitten forever: they make me smile for other people's happiness, and thank the lord that my own happiness lies in a very much different direction.
When I was doing my GCSEs we studied this poem by Jenny Joseph:
Warning
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
I always got the feeling that this might end up being me, and, like with many things in life, it's a pleasant surprise to discover that, in fact, I was right in all respects other than one: I haven't waited to be old to start wearing purple, swearing in the street, and spending my money on inappropriate things - like tattoos and piercings and Mickey Finn apple sours, and trips to London to see old friends - and I think perhaps I am a terrible warning rather than a good example, but someone has to be. How else would humanity learn? And so I will continue to be me:
I am a young woman who wears purple,
With black boots all scuffed, and over-knee socks.
And I shall spend my wages on tattoos and latex corsets
and body piercings, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down in bookshops when I am bored,
and read medical textbooks without buying, and annoy staff,
and play my music too loud and grin at small children,
and ensure my youth is not sober.
So that when I am an old woman with white hair,
and a hat with a feather in it, and old Army boots,
nobody will be too shocked and surprised
that I am suddenly old, and still wearing purple.
