Age sensitive - gender - F

Don’t worry, you’re not the only one that’s getting older.

Sure it’s frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be a death sentence, well not quite yet anyway.

Yes it’s winter and we’re wearing our full length coats, fleecy lined gloves, pure wool scarves and sensible flat shoes.

Take off our outer layer and what do we reveal underneath, more of the same comfortable clothing. Why? for warmth and practicality’ - we left our mini skirts and midnight frolics in near freezing temperatures, way back in the past.

Let’s just agree to let the sweet young things in their designer gear, freeze instead of making our generational grumpy asides to them. Remember, we’re the enlightened ones, the ones that have “been there, done that” and are now so far ahead of the pack that our practicality
is to be envied, not pitied.

Why does age have to be such a leveller, something to run from, to pretend that it’s not happening to us.

“The young”, as my Grandmother referred to them (she pronounced it as YUNG), see us as old (do you blame them). It’s our fault – we’re the ones guilty of labelling ourselves. We make disparaging comments – “I’ll ask the old boy what he thinks”; “she’s having a senior moment”. And on health issues – “it comes with age”, regardless if it’s
only constipation or a simple nose bled, its just got to be age related.

I have reached that sensitive age – the ‘Claytons’ the age when you apparently don’t admit your age. I’m past being coy about it, past stretching the truth and happy to embrace where I’m at now.

Recently I celebrated a chronologically significant birthday. Significant only because I achieved a milestone that 100 years ago would have been inconceivable and unattainable. Although we’re all moving onward and upward at the rate of one year per year my friends felt it necessary to point out the obvious.

Birthday cards were oh so tongue in cheek – singled out were wrinkles, wisps of greying hair, tacky teeth, back problems, failing eyesight and a slow down in lateral thinking and information processing – who needs enemies?

Presents have moved from the pretty and sexy, through the practical (toasters, irons and vacuum cleaners) and onto the everything perfumed vintage, or worse still, nothing.

Well worn clichés and ultimate put downs – “you’re only as old as you feel” and “age has nothing to do with ability”, were sympathetically offered.

Damn it,don’t we want to be accepted and acknowledged for who we are and for what we have achieved? We’ve seen a lot, heard a lot, and lived through a lot.

A World War, the first sub four minute mile, the moon landing, the assassination of John F Kennedy – at that time in that moment, these events were history in the making.

Here’s to a future of health, happiness and a large dose of social altruism.