Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Forget your age, life is really a gift
Warning: may contain sarcasm... and cats
SOMETIMES the best presents come from the most unlikely sources – and this Easter, we all got something unexpected. A surprise offering, courtesy of science. The gift of time.
A new study has revealed that nowadays middle age doesn’t start until you’re 47. Phew. The joy of this information can be shared by everyone, too, as obviously there will be a knock-on effect – old age is probably delayed until the day after you’ve had your telegram from the Queen, at least.
This would be great news whenever it arrived, but is particularly appreciated now, after a year spent on pause, frozen like Walt Disney is rumoured to be, but instead of cryogenically, just sofa-ly.
This revelation also means that I can stop panicking about not feeling grown up yet. I wonder if anyone ever really feels that, anyway? My dad told me, just before his 75th birthday, that he was always surprised to see an old man staring back at him in the mirror.
Similarly, sometimes I catch my reflection, pushing a trolley round a supermarket, and realise that to the outside eye, I must look like a proper person,
rather than how I feel, a little girl playing mums and dads in a Wendy house.
Sometimes the small child I hang out with asks a serious question, or for help with something hard, and I glance over my shoulder, to see how the responsible adult he’s talking to will reply, before remembering that I am his mum and he is talking to me and now I have to come up with an answer.
In my childhood, grown-ups seemed like a different species. When you’re a kid they are allknowing, infallible, unflappable fonts of wisdom, who you can rely on endlessly for whatever you need. When you’re a teenager, they know NOTHING, have never even lived, and cannot understand a single thing about the trials, tribulations and torture you are forced to endure on a daily basis. I can’t decide if it’s comforting or terrifying to mature(ish) and realise that we are all the same, really, regardless of age. The contents don’t change much, their packaging just gets a bit more battered every year.
No matter how old you are – heading for (the all new!) middle age, slap bang in it, way beyond – after the 12 months we’ve just had, it’s clear that none of that matters any more. Age means nothing, what’s important is how you feel, which – surely unanimously at this point – is lucky to be alive.
As the next step in the unlocking of our country approaches, we’re on the verge of being able to do little things again, every aspect of which we’ve previously taken for granted.
Now they will all be delightful novelties, proper treats that we will truly appreciate.
Middle age, middle schmage. The whole of life’s a gift, and whether you make a groaning noise when you sit down or not is simply irrelevant.
‘‘ So middle age begins at 47? That means I can stop panicking...