In a few days I’ll be 47 years old.
F***
How did that happen? It’s terrible.
Not because I’m old but because now, in years, I’ll have lived longer in England than I ever lived in Scotland.
I’ll have been a dentist for longer than I wasn’t, I have even been married 20 years this year.
Exactly the same as that guy who drove down the M6 / A66 / A1 in August 1995 to seek his fortune in England. Exactly the same, save for one thing…
I’ve seen a lot of difficult stuff along the route to get to here, bad stuff that’s happened to me, bad stuff that’s happened to other people, circumstances that people could have controlled and circumstances they couldn’t.
Through that and the experience of that I have developed some aspects of coping in difficult situations.
I think that’s what experience is called.
I lack a bit of arrogance that I had when I drove down and a little of the bulletproof nature I brought with me, there’s only so many times your armour can be shot before a hole appears.
I am more than 10,000 surgical extractions in, more than 5,000 dental implant placements in, over 1000 apicectomies, 1000’s of CBCT scans reported, 1000’s of lectures presented.
I’m not finished yet though, not by a long way I hope.
I once had a woman in to see me… an old retired lady whose husband was an historian, he was in his 70’s.
I asked her if he was still working and she answered emphatically “yes”
She told me “historians are at their best in their 70’s because they spend a lifetime assimilating information and it’s only when they get to their 70’s, if they’re lucky enough to get there, that they can bring it all together”
What a beautiful thought that we would be left with a clear run to assimilate more information ethically and honestly and be given an opportunity to regurgitate that back into society for the benefit of more people.
I think that’s maybe what I’ll try to give myself for my birthday.
Blog Post Number: 1871