Getting Older

I went to the post office recently, as I approached the door I saw a little old lady heading the same way. I could see that I was going to get there first so as I stepped inside I held the door open for her. As she swept through she visibly sped up; with the element of surprise in her favour she made for the counter and with a smooth movement produced a clutch of documents from her battered old shopping bag. I hardly had time to let go of the door before she had engaged in the first of several lengthy transactions which seemed to take a very long time. Of course, all I wanted was a stamp.

This frustrating incident opened my eyes to the fact that getting older is not just a downward slide into greyness and eventual oblivion. There are some advantages which ease the inevitable journey to the departure lounge.

While the disadvantages are obvious, you have to search quite hard for the benefits. One occurred to me while on a recent Christmas shopping expedition. Each year we put aside a modest amount of money to buy presents for the family and take a day before the rush starts to get most of it out of the way. In days gone by, when the kids were very young, there would be much to do and at the end of a tiring day we would return home with a huge cache of assorted toys. For the most part these toys would be played with for a couple of days before either breaking or being discarded. Only rarely did we ever come across something that was truly a good buy.

This year, we were done in about an hour and a half – the reason? Everyone has now reached an age where they know what they want. It’s all expensive, so there’s not so much to get. The upside is that it’s not quite such a waste of money.

When it came to selecting presents for ourselves, Kate and I just couldn’t find anything to buy. It got to the point where the objective was to get rid of the money rather than looking for that little something that we wouldn’t normally buy for ourselves. We found ourselves wandering through all those displays that appear around the entrance to the stores at Christmas; car washing kits, golf mugs, pot pourri, toiletries, etc. All ready packaged in easy wrap presentation boxes. It just all looks like so much land fill fodder so we gave up. I guess that means that we have built up a degree of resistance to at least some of the marketing tricks.

The old adage has it that life begins at forty - well maybe it was true at one time. You could perhaps have expected by that age to be settled in a career with the mortgage paid off and the kids about to leave home. In this respect I have at least scored 1 out of the possible 3. I have made some progress up the career ladder although there's a nagging doubt that if I were ever to get anywhere near the top I’d find it was leaning on the wrong wall.

For me though, the one notable thing about turning 40 was the start of a physical decline. Maybe it’s the strain of keeping up with teenage kids or the monotony of earning a living but I realised my approach to life was changing when I caught myself looking forward to a dull evening in. I’m not exactly a wreck yet but these days it’s getting to the point where if it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t work. The burden of financial responsibility doesn’t help either, in our house the lights get dimmed for economic rather than romantic reasons.

As time speeds by I’ve noticed a peculiar phenomenon. It occurs whenever there is a big event to look forward to, a holiday for example. It comes, it goes by and I find for weeks afterwards I’m still looking forward to it. There may be a deep psychological reason for it, or maybe it's to do with the well known effect of time speeding up as you get older. Anyone passed the age of about 25 will be familiar with this, it’s usually highlighted by older folks muttering phrases like “Saturday already, I ‘don’t know where that week went” or “Easter? Seems like we’ve only just had Christmas”.

I had a colleague once who was nearing retirement. He had a theory about the ever-increasing speed at which time flashed by. He would explain (to anyone who would listen) that at five years old, a year would be a fifth of your total life experience. Yet by the time you reach retirement it is only one sixty-fifth and therefore seems much shorter in comparison. It’s not hard to understand, but doesn’t really explain why I’m still looking forward to my birthday three weeks after the event.

All things considered, getting older isn't so bad, at least I've reached an age when I don't have to care about mobile phone design or features.