Age is just a number

I have a friend from my college days that we all called Age. He was older than us. Only by a bit but enough for us 18 year olds to tease about being an old man.  I wasn't going to write that and now I have no idea where I'm going with my train of thought.  This is one of the problems of being old.
Forgetfulness. 

I'll start again.

It was a colleague's birthday in the week. We asked how old she was going to be.  This is only a rude question if you suspect someone to be over 40 and we thought she was pretty young.
"Hmmm. I'm not looking forward to it," she said, "I'm going to be 27."
We were shocked. We had to confess that we thought she was younger, knowing that for us half centenarians we were mortgaged with children on the way at that age.
"You have to be a grown up when you are 27," she said, sadly.
Although we agreed that it was a grown up sort of age we were curious about what she meant by grown up.
"Well, you can't go to clubs when you are 27 can you?  People would be looking at you like, 'who's that old person there?'"

On Friday, it was a beautiful day.  The sun shone, birds swooped and I had a free evening.  The Long Suffering Husband suggested we go to see another Oscar nominated film and have something to eat. 
"You're getting to be a habit with me," I sang in the style of Peggy Lee, while dancing around the kitchen. "You've got me in your clutches and I can't get free."
"Are you feeling alright?" He asked, "You are in a very good mood."
In town, I skipped along the road.  There was a definite spring in my step. The LSH seemed to be a bit embarrassed at first and then decided that the good mood was preferable to what he'd been putting up with lately. I leaped off the pavement and he followed me. 
A lad holding a fistful of neon pink wristbands approached.

"Excuse me.  Are you interested in going to Bar and Beyond?"
The LSH waved him away and we skipped down the road.
"Bath and Beyond.  Isn't that an American shop?  I didn't know it was here.  Why do you need a pink wristband?  You need a wristband for everything these days.  I even get one when I go swimming just in case I want to go in the hot box after."
The LSH had stopped and he was looking at me strangely.
"It was bar not bath, wasn't it? What's that a club?"
He nodded.
"Oh, he thinks we look young enough to go to a club.  We look under 27." I danced a circle round him.

My youthful feeling didn't last very long. By Saturday it was snowing again and the swallows were panicking that they had mis-timed their flight from Africa.  I couldn't find my car keys when I returned after a day in the library and was just about to panic until I spotted them in the ignition.  I'd gone from 27 to 97 in a day.

Most people say that they don't feel any different, in their head, to how they did when they were young.  It's just the mirror that gives them a shock, or the fact that their knees seem to be worn out, or that they don't find new comedians funny or young people are just so loud that gives it away.

Unfortunately, I seem to have a bi-polar age disorder, where one day I feel ancient and the next I am giggling with some ten year olds about how gross the whole Easter story is and how glad we are that there's chocolate in it.