You don’t have to watch daytime telly to feel old . . . but it helps, says Gerry
by GERRY CORNER
I refuse to have any truck with the ‘O’ word
A SEETHING resentment was building inside me as I approached the nice young woman behind the counter at a local leisure centre.
For she it was who, on a previous visit, had dared to assume that I qualified for the reduced over-60s rate and charged me accordingly when in fact I was barely 59 and three quarters
Why, you may reasonably ask, would I so strongly object to paying less? Was it because I am a thoroughly honest and upstanding member of society? God, no.
Was it because I am vain and insecure and can’t bear the thought that someone might think me the age that I am, give or take a few weeks? Maybe.
What would her response have been had I complained? “Don’t be so ungrateful”? “It’s not my fault that you have so visibly failed to lead a wholesome life”?
Maybe she would have said, “I was just trying to be helpful”, Or: “Don’t be so ungrateful you moaning old get.”
“Moaning get” I will take. It’s the other bit I object to.
Life is not cheap
Of course, some people, lacking a deep sense of inadequacy and obsessive rejection of their chronological age, seize every opportunity to cash in on their concessionary entitlements.
And why not. Life is not cheap after all, and why would they not want to save a few bob here and there if they can, not to mention accept a helping hand from a willing stranger.
They might be grateful to the twentysomething chap kindly offering to give up his seat on the train for them, whereas my inclination would be to give him a sharp slap.
More recently, however, I have tried taking a more benign, accepting view of my age; no longer raging against the dying of the light, while still strongly objecting to it.
I have long abandoned my plan to stop the clock, to never again acknowledge another birthday and instead see out my time in blissful ignorance of the years accumulated.
That strategy lasted as long as it took to book a table at a local restaurant, who insisted on knowing my date of birth before allowing me to eat a pepperoni pizza.
But while I’m now perfectly happy to admit my age (somewhere around the middle of my sixties if you must know) I refuse to have any truck with the “O” word.
Telling yourself you are old is inviting trouble if you ask me.
Some people carry the years as a great weight. They hit 60 and assume every ache and twinge is as unstoppable as the rain; see only a future spent squinting at supermarket labels, watching Lorraine, and forgetting where they put their keys/phone/glasses/grandchildren.
Not me. You won’t find me complaining that music was better in my day or that I am baffled by modern technology. Although it was. And I am.
This is not denial, it’s simple psychology. Act like an oldie and you will be an oldie.
Six months ago, I realised I was beginning to struggle to put my trousers on. Rather than resigning myself, I took the advice of a friend and took up yoga.
Six months on, I am not just donning trousers like a teenager (albeit a severely out of condition teenager), I am expanding my knowledge and slowing my cognitive decline by learning all the weird and wonderful names of the many yoga poses.
Who knew, for instance, that a half pigeon is actually an excellent way to loosen tight hips and not, as you probably thought, the grim aftermath of a collision between an inattentive bird and a Dunlop radial.
Namaste!
GERRY CORNER takes a wry look at the gains and losses of getting older
