Further Adventures in Getting Older
I have a saying, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over”, it started when I was in my fifties, that’s when I noticed how people, especially younger people, began to treat me differently.
They treated me as if I was old. At 50, 55, 59 years old, I was still fit and able, and hadn’t yet begun to feel the aches and pains of getting older. But people around me acted as if I was already in my 90s.
Now, I am 64 years old. I’m beginning to experience something unexpected from other people, especially younger people.
Firstly, I must say, when you get older it’s increasingly difficult to judge another person’s age. I don’t know if this is bound-in with the feeling that it doesn’t really matter anymore, or whether it’s a real mental phenomenon.
I can look at a person and see that they are very young, but adult. And I can look at a person and know they probably describe themselves as middle-aged — for me, they are still young and full of the stuff of life.
Middle age comes, and then it flits by like an out-of-control shopping trolley rolling down a slope. Spinning, bouncing off walls, scraping past cars and shoppers. It stops amongst the dumpsters and waits for the rain to make it…