Act your age

Thankfully I don't often get told to "act your age". If people think I'm behaving in an unseemly way age-wise, they have the tact to let me get on with it and not tick me off.

What on earth does "act your age" mean anyway? What behaviour exactly is suitable for someone of sixty? Or seventy? Or eighty? Should we wear clothes that hide every square inch of flesh? Should we never say anything rude or controversial? Should we avoid contentious subjects like sex, drugs, religion or politics? Should we avoid doing anything that might be seen as childish or immature?

You could tie yourself in knots trying to act the way people expect an oldie to act - whatever that may be. Who gives a damn? The way I see it, we oldies have spent decades being bossed around by employers, bureaucrats, relatives and big companies, and in our final years we should be able to behave however we like and ignore any age-based remarks.

Perhaps "act your age" should mean act like someone who's old enough to have seen plenty of life, who's well-informed, experienced, worldly-wise and confident enough to expose young people's naivety and wishful thinking. That would be a definition worth pursuing.

Into the eighties

It's my birthday in a few days' time (the 20th) and my modest celebration will consist of a box of Lindt truffles, a game of Scrabble and a meal at one of our local restaurants. We haven't had a birthday cake or candles for many years.

Which started me looking into the history of birthday cakes and how they came about.

Cakes have been a part of birthday celebrations in Western Europe from at least the mid 19th century. They started off very simple but became increasingly elaborate with multiple layers, icing and decorations. For a while the cakes were generally only available to the very wealthy. They became affordable to the lower classes as the Industrial Revolution led to mass production of ingredients.

So I'm 79 this year. Next year is the big milestone as I become an octogenarian. Will I still be fairly fit and healthy into my eighties or will I be a crumbling wreck? Who knows?

If I'd been born earlier, before all the recent medical advances, I might not have made it to 79. I may well have died in my sixties. I wonder what the eighties have in store?

Years and tears

Are broken relation-ships harder to cope with as you get older? Are we less resilient, less optimistic, less forgiving? Do we have more invested in them, so that failure comes as more of a blow?

Personally, I couldn't say, as my present relationship is of very long standing. I can only look at what happened when I was young, when I did in fact get over doomed relationships quite easily.

Of course that wasn't just a question of age. It was also because the relationships had been short, or half-hearted to begin with, or I had my eye on someone else anyway.

The older you are, the longer your relationships are likely to have lasted, so they're harder to end for that reason rather than age in itself. Although I think it's also true that as you age you become more dependent on relationships and feel more bereft and beleaguered if they fold. You have less confidence that you can simply bounce back and carry on.

It also comes as more of a shock if someone you've felt totally secure with for many years suddenly announces that they don't feel the same and their affections have moved elsewhere.

I think it's true too that as you get older, relationships seem more important than they did when you were young, and break-ups seem more disastrous. All around you there are happy couples and close friends enriching each others' lives in a hundred ways, and anything that depletes that precious store looks like a tragic waste.

Or can younger people be just as traumatised and shattered by broken relationships as those who're older, especially if they idealise their partners more and expect a perfect emotional harmony that's unattainable?

All I know is that I'm very blessed to have a relationship that's endured for so long, when many people are battered by one disappointment after another, forever asking themselves what went wrong and why others seem to have the magic touch.

Still alive

When I was a teenager, I was firmly convinced I wouldn't live beyond thirty. I guess I felt vulnerable, fragile, at the mercy of unpredictable events that could easily finish me off.

I would be in a car crash, or have a premature heart attack, or be viciously mugged. I would never be old enough to have wrinkles or arthritis or a pension. I'd be a pile of ash long before that.

So now I'm 65 I still find it extraordinary that I've survived to such a ripe old age without the expected calamity carrying me off in the meanwhile. How come I'm still here? How come I'm alive to see the 2012 Olympics, wind farms, Louise Mensch*, Barack Obama and the internet? Which guardian angel is hovering over me, keeping me from harm?

I'm very philosophical about my age though. I have no desperate urge to live to a hundred. I don't see that as a dazzling achievement. And as for living beyond thirty, well, I'm profoundly grateful I met Jenny at the age of 34, naturally. But if I'd snuffed it in my twenties and skipped a few decades, so what? I'd never have met Jenny, but then, what you've never had, you never miss, as they say.

I suppose my assumption of a brief lifespan was partly connected with my constant sense of being different from everyone else. If most people lived to a hoary old age, then ergo, being the habitual exception, I would peg out in my prime.

There was no concrete reason why I should die early. I wasn't addicted to drugs or alcohol. I didn't have a life-threatening illness. I wasn't doing a dangerous job. I was perfectly healthy. Yet I was convinced I couldn't possibly reach middle age, that that was an experience I would never know.

And now here I am, with the wrinkles and the pension. And still with a sense of having cheated my natural destiny. How did that happen?

*Louise Mensch - Tory MP who subjected James and Rupert Murdoch to ruthless questioning over the phone hacking scandal 

Coming of age

I'm usually reluctant to blame my failings on being old. It's rather pathetic to trot out such a lame excuse for being exhausted or grumpy when younger people don't have this handy copout and just have to deal with things.

It also panders to ageism by giving the impression older people are so beset by mental and physical decrepitude they're best avoided and probably not fit to be employed.

But sometimes it's very tempting to use the magic word age to get a wave of sympathy and concern when it's something that fits the bill. And there's plenty to choose from. Knackered? Ratty? Dozing off? Scatterbrained? Bit wobbly? Stiff fingers? Well, I'm getting on a bit, you know. Not as young as I used to be. Oh don't worry, Nick, not a problem, we can handle it.

Except it might not work like that. People might not be sympathetic at all. They might just think I'm being feeble and helpless and should pull myself together. Or since I don't look my age, they might think I'm just kidding and take no notice.

Also, being a fiercely independent person, not wanting to admit I can't cope and not wanting other people fussing round me, I'm actually more likely to put on a BAFTA-winning pretence of Olympic fitness than admit the years might be telling on me.

Anyway, if I start to blame my failings on age, before long I'll be one of those oldies whose lifestyle shrinks to zero on the grounds that I'm getting too old and doddery to do anything new or adventurous. I'll start claiming I don't have the strength or energy to do things instead of rising to the challenge and finding out what my limits actually are.

I don't want to end up one of those old fossils gawping at the TV all day because I'm convinced I'm half-paralysed and ready for the long wooden box. Me, I'm going out with a bang - you're only old once, I say.

(Thanks to Flirty for raising the subject)

Sixty years old!

Yes, tomorrow's the big day - I finally turn 60. It doesn't seem at all significant to me, though other people insist it's some kind of milestone. But nowadays 60 is nothing, when it's commonplace to reach 80 or even 90 and the average 60 year old is still healthy enough to do a demanding job and then go mountaineering or hang-gliding in their spare time.

I certainly haven't experienced any ageism - I've found jobs as easily (or as laboriously) as people half my age and my workmates have never suggested I'm past it or 'not fit for purpose'. Of course that may be partly because I look very young for my age - a trait that runs in the family. I'm astonished, and slightly disappointed, that my hair is not yet grey - at school I always used to envy my music teacher with his glorious mane of wild grey hair.

I think the most puzzling thing about being 60 is having no idea how long I'm going to live, how healthy or unhealthy I'm going to be, and whether I should indulge all my lingering ambitions ASAP in case of rapid physical decline. My father died at 70 but my maternal grandparents both lived to 91, so it's anybody's guess. I just hope that Jenny, who's ten years younger than me, doesn't wind up looking after a crumbling geriatric.

But some people still think that by my age life must be rather humdrum and flat and I must spend all my time reliving the glory days of my youth - digging out the old Beatles albums and rereading Lord of the Rings. On the contrary - I still find life amazingly interesting and surprising and have no desire to live in the past. I think oldies who condemn contemporary culture as baffling and rarified need to loosen up and open their eyes. I mean, how can anyone not enjoy Pink and Goldfrapp?

And finally I reflect that reaching 60 at all is due to a lucky geographical accident - being born in a prosperous western country. If I lived in Zimbabwe, my current life expectancy would be around 37 - and dropping.

"The good thing about getting older is that, as you become less attractive, so you have less desire to go out and conquer everyone you see." - Julian Clary (47).

Photograph by Smitten at Flickr