'Do You Feel "Old" Yet?'

My existential crisis as my boy becomes a man

'Do You Feel "Old" Yet?'

That was a question posed to me by my sister-in-law earlier this week, and it touches on a broader existential crisis that I have been having for a while now.

I was dropping my partner off to spend the day with her sisters while I went home to practise my music and write Substacks. This is quite a common thing we do when we both have a midweek day off. My Mrs hates sitting in all day and gets bored easily when she doesn’t have people around. She needs to be around people to socially charge and bring up her mood. I am quite the opposite. My social battery drains quickly when I am around people and I regularly need time alone to recharge it. I treasure my alone time as most of my interests necessitate it. Reading, composing music, writing essays, etc. 

So we have fallen into a comfortable habit of spending these kinds of days apart to pursue our own forms of fulfilment, born out of a mutual agreement. It works for the most part. 

But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, it's only been a recent development that has occurred in the last few years. That is because of the reason my sister-in-law asked me that question: my son, her nephew. 

My son Josh (age 8 I think)

He is turning 18 today: the 26th of September. I can’t believe it and to answer her question, yes it makes me feel REAL FUCKING OLD!!!

‘18!!! Can you believe it?!!! 

No. I can’t. 

He’s independent now and no longer has much need for me other than as a taxi service. (Soon he’ll have a driver's licence and even that much utility that I serve will also become obsolete). 

Long gone are the days where one of my partner or I had to be available to care for him. He gets himself up for college Monday to Friday and on weekends to go to work. He has a long term girlfriend who he spends weekend evenings with. They’ve been an item for going on 4 years now, incredibly. That’s already longer than any romantic relationship I ever had with any woman other than his mother. 

He studies for his exams without any prompting, setting himself goals and deadlines to ensure he completes it all in a timely fashion. He’s already decided what he wants to do after he completes his A-Levels, a paid apprenticeship, not attending university even though he is predicted to get straight As. Given the state of modern academia, I am in full support of his choice to learn a practical trade rather than incurring tens of thousands of pounds of debt studying for a degree that mostly consists of postmodernist “Critical Theory’ that is entirely useless in the real world. 

He plays a lot of football but doesn’t take it too seriously and says he plays for the love of the game and to unwind. This keeps him fit, teaches him about the group dynamics of social groups and how to work as part of a team. 

This was taken nearly a year ago… I swear he’s grown 18 inches taller since

He’s super frugal about money and tries not to spend what he earns if he can help it. And in spite of his age, gender and subsequent high testosterone, he shows very little interest in alcohol. Whenever his team wins a league match and the coach gives all the players a can of beer as a bonus, he always re-gifts his to me.  

All in all, he seems to have everything figured out and a wisdom and sense of self-responsibility far beyond his years. He definitely didn’t get that from me. I can’t remember what I was doing at his age as I was permanently shit-faced, destroying my body in any and every way I could and I still can’t figure out how to save my bloody money. 

But in spite of my optimism for the boy's future, I still feel sad that he is not my ‘little man’ anymore, and never again will be.

Josh and his late Great Grandmother, my ‘Nan’

I made the selfish choice after he was born to only have one child. I grew up in a HUGE family, I am one of ELEVEN children, and the stretching of resources that must occur to sustain such a sizable family unit leaves each of them with very little. So I decided to put all my eggs in one basket and focus on trying to do my best at raising only one kid. 

I was also really young when he was born, having just turned 21. I had not long escaped the cult and had many plans of what I was going to do after I had let loose for the first few years after my escape. I had received virtually no education, having been home educated under a strict theocratic ideology, and dreamed of getting a proper education. One where they taught science without dismissing evolution, the Big Bang and carbon dating as heretic lies. 

I was also planning to change the world with my music as any young and idiotic musician does. I wanted to get a science degree but become a millionaire from my music, just like Brian May. 

But when my son was born I put that stuff on hold for a while, along with the drinking, partying and debauchery. I told myself that I would spend 18 years raising the boy with him as my exclusive focus and at the end of that time, I’d be nearly forty and I could ‘have my life back’. That sounds selfish, and it is, but it is the justification I used as to why I only ever had one child. 

And now that time has come. I moved the ‘education’ part of my plan up by 4 years as my son at 14 was already mostly self-sufficient, so I have the degree in the bank. Now I am faced with what I have been planning for the best part of 19 years since my partner found out she was pregnant: and I don’t want it anymore. 

I don’t want to go back to partying and drinking, that’s not me anymore and hasn’t been for a very long time. Nor do I want to be a famous rockstar. The music industry is something I find deeply off-putting and I get pleasure out of composing music, not performing it.

I’m a different person now, I am a father. That has been the single most defining part of my identity for nearly twenty years, and now I am at a loss as to what to do now that part of me is obsolete.

Yes that’s the actually FA Cup. It was on a tour of non-league football grounds. Josh didn’t win it (yet)

Luckily, being a father wasn’t the only part of my identity.  I am still a musician and continue to make music, of course. That has always given me meaning and will remain to do so I am sure. I have also rediscovered my love of reading in recent years which has fed into a deep adoration for writing. I am even trying my hand at writing fiction, something I have always wanted to do but never believed I had the chops.

I have fallen in love with western classical philosophy over the years and now enjoy trying my hand at amateur philosophic writing (no more than a dime-store philosopher). 

All of these endeavours give my life meaning and in Substack I have found a home for all of them. The fact that a couple of hundred or so people have subscribed to my little blog in my first six months here is something I could never have imagined would happen and I am SO grateful for them. My music has been listened to and people have commented on its effects on their emotional states. In my view, that is the main function of art and it is unbelievably validating to have it happen.

My ‘dime-store philosophy’ has been read and engaged with by readers, some who have agreed with the ideas and some who have challenged them. Real philosophical debate going on in the comment sections of my posts is so fulfilling to see. I can’t believe anyone would ever read anything I write, let alone talk about it after the fact. 

Thank you all. A special thank you to the few wonderful people who have signed up as paid subscribers; I cannot put into words how much I appreciate you guys. 

So as one chapter of my life finishes, another begins. ‘Pete the Father’ becomes ‘Pete the Writer’, ‘Pete the Songwriter’, 'Pete the Dime-Store Philosopher’, ‘Pete the Substacker’, ‘Pete the Common Centrist’. 

Thank you, my small but beautiful Substack community. You have given me an outlet for my creativity and a path to something after being a caregiver. Here’s to the next chapter of my life, I hope you come along for the ride. 

Happy 18th Birthday, Josh. You are and always will be the greatest source of meaning in my life. I am so fucking proud of you. 

And yes sister-in-law, I do feel old. 

Thanks for reading

The Common Centrist

This is the photo I show people to prove I was once thin