Getting Older

 There’s good news and bad news in the science press at the moment. Now, wait for it. It’s going to come as a shock but scientists have discovered that ageing is inevitable. There’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. You are going to get older (unless you suddenly die, of course, but that seems to be getting harder to do). The researchers of the study have also concluded that there’s not much you can do about how fast you age either because of biological factors.

There’s even maths to prove it.

This is bad news if you are hoping to sail towards death with perfect eyesight and the joints of a twenty year old. If you were hoping to be an octogenarian that doesn’t ache a bit and say, “ooof,” when you get out of a chair or have to read a book at arm’s length then you are likely to be in for a shock. If you thought your face won’t wrinkle and your upper arms won’t sag then life is going to be tough. If you were hoping to live forever then that’s still a possibility because they are getting really good at keeping people alive. Although, this might not be such good news if you want to actually do anything while still alive.

However, there are benefits of getting older, especially as a woman.

The pressure is off. You’re no longer a ripe peach waiting for the seed of any passing male. Your wrinkles and sagging breasts stop the nutters even considering that you are fair prey. All that stupid menstrual stuff has stopped. Every day is the same, you don’t have three days a month when you just want to hide, eat chocolate and rue the fact that absolutely no painkiller actually works and one day when anyone who wants to live would be wise to avoid you. Obviously, you have to get through the fight your hormones put up to relinquish your fecundity but once you are out the other side the future looks calm and even. All moods from hereon in are your own.

The biggest surprise about ageing for me has been the steadiness of the world. Nothing seems to change too fast anymore. Actually, things do change fast but they have a familiarity to them.Even weird things like global pandemics feel like someone with whom your are partially acquainted . You have a back catalogue of events that can help you put most things into context.

If you’ve managed to get your children through to adulthood then you can step back. It’s true that you never stop worrying about them but the worries are less frequent. You aren’t in the constant state of just getting used to one phase before the next one starts.  Sometimes they worry about you instead and you look at them like a petulant teenager, roll your eyes and say, “Really?”

You can start to enjoy things that you thought were silly in your youth. River cruises, jigsaws, eating toffees (who had time for toffee in their thirties?) , gardening, rambling, having lunch. 

You can wear slippers and sit with a blanket round your shoulders on a Summer solstice that is colder than this year’s winter one was and know that there have been cold wet Junes before but also be aware that the climate is changing. 

I’ll be honest; I quite like being older. Pass that tin of Werther’s originals, I’ve got knitting to get on with, while watching a gentle murder mystery interspersed with adverts for canal boat holidays.