Old

Recently I had dinner with a senior diplomat who spoke bravely about confronting the sheer horror of turning 50. The unwavering march of the calendar date toward him was ruthless.

Carrington Bowling Club members growing old disgracefully. Pic: Robert McKell

In the meantime he was stubbornly holding on to being in his forties. As a 43-year-old myself, he desperately looked in my direction in search of a common age identity.

In youth growing old was good. Age brought an end to study, hopefully a nice job, and with it economic emancipation. Age was also a ticket to fun: independence, romance, and booze.

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  • Valerie Woodruffe says:

    02:40pm | 16/05/11

    Golfing great Seve Ballesteros who died last week at 54,  was just one year younger than me (my birthday is in December), goes to show you never know when your time is going to come up, and you should live every day as your last Read more »

  • Watcher says:

    12:38pm | 15/05/11

    turning 50 is not such a bad thing, it might have been 100 years ago, they did not live as long, but you can wear the half a century badge proudly, today knowing you still have plenty of years in front of you. Turning 50 did not bother me, turning… Read more »

 

What do you do with your life when what is left can be counted in years, rather than decades?

Table tennis champ Dorothy De Low. 100, still going strong. Pic: Phil Hillyard

When the realisation hits that you are sliding into oblivion?

This new fear is aided and abetted by the overwhelming attitude of the community towards the elderly.

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  • Damocles says:

    05:58pm | 21/03/11

    Yeah, well picked “rickety” Reg (blah..blah…blah), but I think you’ll find that “their or they’re” is a GRAMMATICAL error, not a SPELLING error, so go and bark up another tree! My “breathtaking, assumptive, god damn statement” is true and correct and one you didn’t respond to, but feel free to… Read more »

  • sherry says:

    12:44am | 20/03/11

    At the age of 45 I was bemoaning my state of ‘already too oldism’ to an 85 year old friend who had immigrated from England at the age of 75 to be near a particular spiritual community. She looked penetratingly at me and smiled indulgently; ‘My dear, 45 is a… Read more »

 

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