Big birthdays require big presents, don't they? As Shane Gilchrist turns 40, he ponders gifts, ghosts and guitars.
By the time you read this, the two or three fingers that typed these words will have ticked off a significant milestone.
Their 40th year on Earth was marked two days ago; yes, on Christmas Day, meaning the celebration could have been as meaningful for my mum as it was to me, possibly more in fact, given it was she who did all the work a week before 1968 turned to 1969.
I know this (the work bit) because I am now father to two boys. Thus I have marvelled, shrivelled and winced while witnessing labour (the act of giving birth, not the party, though politicians have prompted the occasional bloodcurdling expletive).
At 40, I have arrived at a point that, smug as it sounds, seems closer to the concept of half full than half empty.
However, here's the catch, the hole in which I stumble in my philosophical wanderings: if I am happy enough with my lot why do I feel the urge to surrender to that most likeable of consumerist constructs - the present to oneself?
Perhaps it's because such a grand milestone requires a grand gesture. After all, not everyone manages to reach 40. Take at look at photos of family, friends, that school class portrait and it's possible a subject or two now only exists by way of music, microfilm or megapixel.
Yet ghosts need not be confined to the dead. Approach 40 and they come at you from all angles.
They are the spectres of memory and, in my case, now largely provoke smile rather than shriek: the eight-year-old boy with long hair, gappy teeth and singlet outline visible through skivvy; the 16-year-old with punkish prongs; the occasional six-week girlfriends and, later, ones who lasted a little longer; the great Kiwi holidays with Bridget; marriage to the aforementioned; the kids.
Ah, the kids. No-one warns you of this, but here it is: pondering presents for yourself isn't as easy when you have children. A once enjoyable process undergoes some sort of paradigm shift.
Gluttony morphs into guilt and becomes a chilling confrontation with the concept of priorities, an idea to which I've always been loath to subscribe.
Recently, I've been suffering from visitations of the instrumental kind. Images of classic guitars flicker, despite a current inventory that numbers four.
Still, there is always room for more; they certainly take up less space than sports cars (maybe that fetish comes later, at 50).
Besides, I already have two cars, a little one and a bigger one. Both are silver, unsexy and relatively economical, yet able to stow reasonable amounts of child detritus.
No, on the shopping list is a guitar. Or, to be exact, several. It's hard to choose. And dithering can't be blamed on age. When it comes to purchases, even items off a menu, I tend to take my time.
Within my grasp are new ones and old ones. In fact, the older the better.
Take, for instance, the 1978 Fender Telecaster Custom in rare (for such a model) sunburst. It's been doing the rounds on Trade Me for a few months now.
I have the buy-now price burned into my memory. At $3000 it's not a bad investment, though I don't buy guitars to make money. I prefer them to make music, the purpose for which they were intended.
Still, that sort of dosh could get me plenty else: a new flat-screen telly, one of those Wii videogame consoles (though it'd more likely be ‘‘me, me me'' than we) and/ or a surround-sound audio system of a power that would rock both neighbours and orbiting Nasa vehicles.
Then again, such wishes might remain just that - fantastical, ghostly even - given the credit card is in the red and awaiting rescue by way of a tax return.
In fact, as cold financial reality creeps forth, the best bet might be a couple of good books and a quiet place in which to enjoy them. Snore and peace perhaps?
