I wondered how many readers here think about the aging process. Not many under the age of 30 I would hazard a guess.

When you are young, the world is your oyster, you have get up and go, your horizons are endless and your whole life stretches ahead of you, just waiting for you to take it by the hand and run with it.


Youth


Hey, I was young once, I know how it goes. I have partied all night then gone straight to work, been ill from drinking too much, had the self-confidence to flit from one job to another, confident that I was more than capable of handling what life would throw at me. I have experimented with whatever the fashion dictated at the time, and like my peers, I didn’t worry about mortgages and pensions and so forth. My mother always said the best days of your life are at school – and I scoffed at such nonsense, I hated school, and the great world out there was waiting for me.

But suddenly, you find you are getting old. The first thing to go is your eyesight, and you kid yourself that it’s a fashion thing as you step out of the opticians with something very useful but hugely expensive, as Prada was the only thing you could possibly wear (or whatever was the ‘in’ thing at the time).


Age


Your joints start to ache more, and you push those killer heels to the back of the wardrobe. You catch a reflection of yourself in a shop window, and it’s your mother looking back at you. You start spending more and more money on products trying to stop nature wrinkling your skin. You start wearing ‘safe’ colours and styles - gosh, I can see myself changing into one of those ‘beige people’ as I write.

But it does have advantages, oh yes. Quiz shows – you can sit and shout at the TV and marvel at other people’s lack of knowledge (how come they didn’t know what Henry VIII’s second wife died of?) You can claim ignorance of high-tech things and get someone young to fix it for you (oh, so that’s how you turn it on - silly me, I forgot). You can get upset if dinner isn’t on the table by such and such a time (what do you mean, eight o’clock isn’t late?).

I once found myself in a hardware store (not here) buying those tiny paint sample pots and searched through the coins in my purse for the right money. The young assistant watched me as I fiddled around, no doubt thinking I was hard up and probably hadn’t got enough money – and then quietly asked if I would like the Pensioner’s Discount as it was Wednesday? Well, at the time, I wasn’t even a pensioner, but swallowing my pride, I took the discount - heck, and why not!

I will tell you a funny story about a friend. Oh, he was so good-looking as a young man - he possessed a great deal of charismatic magnetism and had women throwing themselves at him. He has now reached his four score years and ten (and then some) and has become a great-grandfather. One day he caught the train (taking advantage of his free pass no doubt) and because it was crowded, was standing up and holding on to the rail above. An attractive young lady who was sat down near him was giving him the eye, smiling at him, and the old flush of pride in himself made him stand straighter and he sucked in his stomach. He thought well, well, the old devil still has ‘it’ then, and grinned back - until she stood up and asked if he would like her seat! What a downer!


Wisdom


So there are pros and cons about being young or old. With age comes wisdom, but with youth comes the experiences that give you that wisdom, and with a young heart inside, you can be young forever. I love this saying: the old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything. Happy days!

Author

Marilyn writes regularly for The Portugal News, and has lived in the Algarve for some years. A dog-lover, she has lived in Ireland, UK, Bermuda and the Isle of Man. 

Marilyn Sheridan