THE FIRST TASTE OF AGEING

The first taste of getting old can be unsettling. You’ve been cruising along without giving much thought to age.

But then you notice an unfamiliar stiffness and soreness after exercise. You can’t stand up from a crouch as you used to. You see some wrinkles and a new crease. People treat you differently, offering to help you and asking about your health, saying how wonderful you look in a way that says: “You look good – for your age!”

In my mid-sixties something happened that forced me to think seriously about ageing. I was on a book tour in San Francisco, walking up and down the steep hills, when I felt an unusual pain in my back.

I went on to Seattle and again felt the pain and became dizzy even on a flat street. I stood at a corner amid heavy traffic and held on to a post for a few minutes, my head spinning.

When I got home my doctor suspected a heart problem and scheduled a stress test. It turned out I had considerable blockage in one of the main arteries.

Having them cleared out and receiving two stents wasn’t painful, but I found it difficult to recover emotionally.

I went into a mild depression. My wife says I became a different person, softened and more relaxed. I certainly felt older.

Even now, 10 years later, it seems those days of recovery were a turning point at which I really began to feel my age. But the depression didn’t last long. Besides, I felt so good after the treatment that I also gained back some youth.

In the years since then I’ve had an active and productive life, both in my career and with my family.

In my mid-sixties something happened that forced me to think seriously about ageing