I misplaced 56 entirely but now I’m really 57, I’ll keep the old woman out!

For all that I rail against the dying of the light, turning 57 was incredibly easy: not least because I genuinely thought I’d already done it. I’m not quite sure how I managed to lose a year. I know we blame Covid for most things now, but almost all the post-pandemic confusion over those two missing years has people subtracting dates, not adding them on. Even though we’re heading into the twilight section of 2023, I frequently still write the date as 2021. Maybe it’s because we didn’t get to write the date very much at all in 2020 and 2021, unless we were scratching it into the wall beside our sick beds. But somewhere in those higgledy piggledy years, I actually added a year to my age. I don’t exactly recall blowing out 57 candles at any point — but this week, when the correct time came for me to do just that (albeit metaphorically; the planet is burning enough), I experienced the happy dawning that I had mentally adjusted to my awesome age, well, ages ago.

Part of it, I think, is the relative painlessness of the sixes and sevens. If you’re 56, sure you might as well be 57. You’re into the wrong half of the decade, but you’re not close enough to the business end to start fretting about the first number changing. There’s no way you’re going to think you’re 60 if there’s even a day left in your 50s. The same applies to your 40s and, I’d guess, to your 60s and 70s. Either side of those middling decades, you probably have better things to worry about than your chronological age. No child has ever thought they were six when they were actually a world-weary seven. On the far side of the calendar, older people know that getting their age wrong could result in a fast tracked admission to a home for the bewildered, and they’re not taking any chances with that. Only in these doldrummy bits of the doldrummy decades can such mistakes occur.

Anyway, where was I? Fifty seven, yes. So far, much the same as 56, though I intend getting a full year out of this one (also, I reserve the right to go back to 56 at some point, since I didn’t get the full benefit of it first time round.) I don’t know if there has ever been a scientific study into the precise age at which people start hating that their numbers are stacking up, but for my part, I can’t remember having many positive feelings about anything beyond about 37. But here I am, 20 years past that point, and I can honestly say that physically, I don’t feel older or any different and if I’ve weathered a fair few mental blows in those intervening decades, well look, I’ve weathered them.

I recently heard the (apparently wellknown) story about Clint Eastwood, playing golf on the eve of his 88th birthday, asked by his companions how he continued to achieve so much at an age when most people are sitting in armchairs watching Clint Eastwood films. ‘I don’t let the old man in,’ came the reply. Now, while I would suggest that the very fact that he was on a golf course at the time suggests the contrary, I am willing to overlook the inconvenient location because he is Clint Eastwood and because his answer might just be my new favourite thing.

Now the former Mayor of Carmel is 93 and directing his latest movie. Meanwhile, The Rolling Stones are promoting a new studio album, Paul McCartney is being Paul McCartney and Dick Van Dyke, at 97, is still popping up on YouTube dancing around his kitchen. And I know that you can’t account for your genes or for sheer bad luck, but I do think that if you actively choose to bolt the doors against the old person, then in your head at least, you can be whatever age you desire.

When my kids were younger, we used to enjoy listing all the stuff they could now do — vote, drink legally, drive a car, stand for election, get married — as they passed certain milestone ages. The thing is, aside from voting (which has never been optional in this house,) none of them did any of those things at the State-sanctioned age-appropriate time. And that was when the numbers actually looked good. If you can’t follow the serving suggestions in your 20s, why on earth would you do so in the years when the menu isn’t nearly as tempting?

Keep the old person out. And stay forever age inappropriate. Even if you’re not entirely sure what that age actually is.