| Age and growing older |
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8 February 2005 The other day, I met a prospective tenant aged 20. He said that he wished to move from his existing property which he shared with the owner, a man aged 32. He said that he wanted to share with people his own age, although he added, somewhat condescendingly, that the 32 year old did not act his age. I am arranging a 90th birthday party for my mother May in May. She was telling me that she was going to recite a poem at Church this week which she had learned when she was 10. She told me that she still felt like that 10 year old girl on the inside. Children normally have young parents, although that is changing, but to them their parents seem to be infinitely older. My mother, the youngest of a large family, tells me that she doesn't remember her mother as being other than an old lady who dressed in black; someone from a different time. As I reached my twenties, I saw people in their fifties as ancient, but that was in the late sixties, when the contrast with the ‘elderly' could hardly have been greater. Now, we have people of my generation wanting to grow old disgracefully. To such a person, someone young is simply someone with fewer memories and fewer lines. To the younger person, there is still an inability to accept that the older person was ever really in their position. They still appear to be another species. And so growing old disgracefully will normally only occur between consenting and equally old other people. Of course, there are exceptions. Ageing rock stars, for instance, seem to move from young starlet to young starlet. Maybe the combination of a wild reputation and lots of money can overcome the age barrier. It is disappointing that when I was discussing my future with the school careers officer, I was never told of the advantages in later life that being a rock star could bring. It might have made all the difference. |