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Growing old is mandatory Growing up is optional
Why...
Can’t we see that our views on age are just relative to ourselves. Right now I think of myself around mid-forties until I am reminded I have a son nudging fifty. Yet when I was seventeen I remember being very sad that Clint Eastwood was 40 when he made Dirty Harry and thus was in the twilight years of his career. I sighed that Debbie Harry of Blondie had found stardom so late in life at 33. I am sure President Biden looks at Jagger and Richards prancing around as rock gods on stage and the same age as him, wistfully wishing he would be allowed to do the same thing but the decorum of his office prevents it. I mean, he knows he could do it.
...and another thing
When I was under thirty everyone over that looked the same. I was always in awe of people in movies when asked to describe a suspect could say mid- fifties, early forties or late sixties. How? They all looked the same to me. Just old.
Now I have got to a stage in life where I have come full circle and add a half or three quarters to my age like I did when I was eight. ”No I’m sixty seven and a half, not sixty eight.”
...and another thing
As many friends will attest with a knowing nod of the head, I have never really grown up. Nearly everything I loved as a nipper I still love now. There may be some subtle shading but it’s basically the same. Real cars instead of Scalextric, chocolate, though not your mass produced junk but rather organic delicacies, TV and movies though not superheroes but more stories about super heroes. Christmas stockings, though choosing presents for my wife’s one almost as much fun as me opening mine.
I have always hated wearing any uniform be it cricketing whites or a suit and tie. I don’t own a pair of brogues, think farts are funny and still bored rigid by economists and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
.At private boarding school between the ages of 8 and 17 I was in church every day and feel my quota is done and never been back except for weddings and funerals. However, I am tempted to read the bible now as it may be seen as swatting for my final exam.
...and another thing
I get deeply offended when I am asked in a questionnaire what age group I am in when it turns out I simply have to tick age 60 and above. How come you can split up everyone in five year groups but if you hit sixty with a reasonable chance of scoring 80, the next four tranches of five years are all the same. I am pretty sure there will be far more difference between a sixty year old me and an eighty year old one than between a forty and sixty year old version.
...and another thing
Finally, I was blessed with not being super athletic. In fact during the years of most people’s sporting prowess between 18-25 I was a gold medalist in partying, casual sex, alcohol and dubious pharmaceuticals. The result of all that is rather than bemoan I can no longer bench press a couple of Melissa McCarthys, I am actually fitter and stronger now than I was in my youth. I am the Benjamin Button of my Pilates group.
So as I sign off this missive to go grab a Mars bar ice cream from the fridge then take the sports car out for a blast too fast, remember this.
No one on their death bed said “I wish I had spent a few extra days in the office.”
Hey ho pip pip.
Forgive the six months silence. I have been battling trying to rescue a business I was badly let down on by my other partners. I am happy to say I and other shareholders have managed to turn the corner. The result will indeed be a dish best served cold.
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