I have a friend, Dr. Gill of Sharjah, who made a rather telling remark. He said, it is hard work getting old.
And that is so true. We never think of it that way but everything is a more onerous chore. Even putting your trousers on requires a lost dexterity. You are regimented to the clock, the slightest aberration in food, a little bit of overindulgence and there are consequences. There are meds to take, foods to cut out, you never hear enough of it as they babble on about salt, sugar, coffee, tea, fried foods, cigarettes, even if you sit down it is a major thought process to get up, like you have to send signals to your legs way in advance to get rid of the pins and needles.
The young don’t even register it. Like picking up a slightly heavy suitcase can mean a severely injured back, a fall in the bathroom turns into a broken hip that never gets back to normal. You have to strain to hear what others are saying, constantly marvelling why they all mumble, the staircase is daunting and the search for all kinds of spectacles unending.
In all this the most bugging thing is being dependent on others who all know what is good for you … the arrogance of youth allows them that liberty.
And the signs that you are past the half way house can be funny ha ha and funny peculiar.
All the young people suddenly get very busy when you say, “Let me tell you when I was your age ...”
You cannot believe what things cost as compared to your childhood and you can't wait to share the comparison if you can get someone to stay long enough to listen.
Ads on herbal medicines and what they do to your system fascinate you. Someone sees you jogging and tells you it is dangerous at your age. Gravity seems to be winning hands down because now life is one big sag.
You meet some young guy whose swash hasn't buckled and he reminds you of what you once were, and you loathe him for it. Then you go home and sadly realise you’ll never run the 400 metres again or climb a tree or swim a river or do a thousand things you did before.
You find today’s youngsters lazy, shiftless, spoilt, pampered, ill mannered louts ... not much different from what you were.
You can’t open a lid and you go red in the face trying, and then some kid comes and yanks it off and, upstaged, you go looking for Deep Heat.
Your whole breakfast is a saga in roughage and fibre and you actually read the ingredients on the packet to see if you have had 60 per cent of your riboflavin — whatever that is.
You discuss the details of your flipping daily “walk” with others of your age ... like who cares, did you ever think you’d do that?
If you do something young at heart your family is embarrassed, like not at your age ... well, whyever not?
You find yourself obsessed by your digestive system and its mysteries.
You wonder where the time went, there was so much of it just yesterday ... it was yesterday. Itwasitwasitwas.
