Am I Old?

What is getting old - grey pubes and incontinence?

our childhood pop idols suddenly turning 65?

...or do we simply shed life's baggage

and loose our independence

our physical strength

and our sex drive

and we sit in chairs and read the obituary columns 

to see if we recognize anyone

we label old age

"old men wrapped in sensible coats"

"old men in sensible, well polished shoes"

"old women all dolled-up"

"mutton dressed as lamb"

sayings like "getting on a bit"

"long in the tooth"

"no spring chicken"

you can have a "senior moment"

(I have many!)

you can be "sprightly"

you can be told to "act your age"

or to "grow up" - what? My physical age, or my mental age? (they're very different!)

age can be tender

be "grand" or "ripe"

you can start to "look it"

you can be "making the most" of it

"putting the years on"

or "be over the hill"

time can be kind to you despite having "one foot in the grave"

"being in god's waiting room"

or "waiting for the sunset"

old age borrows particularly from the seasons with many references to Autumn

"now the leaves are falling fast"

"summer's passing"

"it's yellowing, dying leaves"

"shortening days"

"looking ahead to the onset of winter (the final season) 

"the dying light"

"the winter of our lives"

Poets and authors have featured many lines on it

"Youth and I are housemates still"

they talk of "Grey shadows"

"Give me immortality"

"...whilst we are getting old and dusty"

"What is it to grow old? Is it to feel every limb grow stiffer, every function less exact?"

 "Could lonely wait my endless rest?"

"That is no country for old men"

"When I am an old woman I shall wear purple"

"But the older woman only; knows the ebb-tide leaves her lonely"

I write of old age as the nightmare of being sat in a highbacked chair 

in a row of highbacked chairs

(none matching)

in the lounge of an old people's home

with the smell of disinfectant and urine filling my nostrils 

jigsaws and relentless television

locks on all the doors just in case we finally remember something

like we don't want to be here!

care assistants busying themselves

Breakfast lunch dinner!

Breakfast lunch dinner!

endless cups of tea in chipped mugs

(I don't like tea)

No thank you! 

although...

I don't want to be a burden

and I know I'll be a nightmare

when I'm old

if I am lucky enough

to become older

well 

older than I am now

for I

as we all do

believe that we aren't old yet

until that one day

when having crept up on you

it smacks you 'round the face

and you ask yourself...

"Am I old?"