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 independenceour 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?"
