THERE was a time when, as retirement age neared, it was a toss up which would pay out first – your State Pension or your funeral plan.
Nowadays, with a slice of luck and something approaching a moderately healthy lifestyle, you can look forward to several more annual bunion checks at the foot clinic before you’re finished.
Many factors will affect our ability to savour those extra years, not least an ability to see the bright side.
In this vein, the great American writer Mark Twain urged us to embrace later life as “a privilege denied to many”.
An ageing relative had a different approach. “Don’t get old”, she would warn me, usually after a painful reminder from her body that all was not well under the bonnet.
Now I am the ageing one but since the alternative – oblivion – isn’t especially inviting, I will gladly take however many more years the universe grants me.
That’s not to say it’s always easy to face the world with a smile, on those days when my sixties seem to sting more than they swing.
However much I may try to ignore my years, insist that “in my head I’m still 21”, thinning bones, weakening cartilage and all manner of unidentified aches and twinges provide daily reminders that I am 66 and finally understanding why they call it clickety-click.
That I have entered the time of life where a hip joint is less about hanging out in a trendy bar as a subject for discussion with a medical professional.
It would be nice to think at least that the many harsh lessons learned down the years had earned me a sage-like reputation among friends and family members. So why does it sometimes feel I’m regarded not so much as the wise old buddha as the daft old bugger.
Yet for all the drawbacks of advancing age, I am grateful to still be knocking around, and for a mind and body functioning, touch wood, at a workable level.
And it is not lost on me that in the course of more than six decades there have been occasions when, had fate held different ideas, I could have been fatally denied the privilege of a cut-price haircut at my local barber’s.
That time the bonnet flipped up and lodged against my windscreen
on the M58, a handful of nights lost to drink, not to mention being carried out into the Atlantic on a rip tide during a trip to Lanzarote.
Whatever our particular circumstances, there are always blessings, however small, to be thankful for: the birds singing in the trees, a hot shower, that first cuppa of the day. After all, you only get one crack at life. Unless you are Hindu, obviously.
Come to think of it, there are numerous consolations to being older. For one thing you are unlikely to suffer from acne.
Other plus points include:
*You don’t have to fork out the fare for all those bus journeys to and from hospital appointments.
*Many opportunities arise to stay relevant and young at heart by hanging out with the cool kids, or as your grandchildren’s parents call it, babysitting.
*If nobody else buys you a present for your big 6-0, you can always rely on your bowel cancer screening kit landing on the doormat.
*Best of all your social life suddenly blooms as regular funerals provide the ideal opportunity to catch up with old pals at the same time as seeing one off…
Happy retirement!
