Invisible as air and nobody cares
Getting old is scary, and as crumbly as shortcrust pastry. You can count your age any way you like. Tennessee Williams always said he was 10 years younger because “The years working in a shoe shop didn’t count”. But against the vicious nature of fate, the old are spit. And as Bruce Chatwin said in his book Utz, “Things never get better”.
It is like trying to pick up a turd at the clean end and finding there is no clean end.
Joan Didion famously said, “I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be …” Once you were brave, breakneck and funny, now you have broken your neck. Emergency wards are full of oldies who have fallen in the shower.
Seventy is death by remote control. The button has been pressed and is just taking time to get the message to you. The doctor says, “Oh it’s all downhill from here.” You think, well I have always wanted to learn Mandarin. But then you think, what’s the point of learning Mandarin if death is only a bee’s wing away and I don’t think there are many Chinese slouching around Pick n Pay, lusting to be chatted up.
There are always those Greater Red Lipped monsters who are still dancing at 90 to the refrain “You are as old as you feel”. I feel 19, would someone let my liver know? The guy behind the counter says, “Young lady, what can I do for you?” If he knew how crazed I was he wouldn’t risk questions like this.
Old people need to be weaponised. An explosive private income is my gun of choice.
An inheritance of money and a Monet. Getting old is expensive and no-one is picking up the bill. People say, “Oh what a pity you don’t have children.” My friend rings and says, “Toby is on ‘it’ again.” “It” is not a walk in the park. I wouldn’t mind a bit of “it” myself. Drugs for the over-60s should be mandatory.
Old people never sleep, so if at 2am you want to know anything about sharks or Hitler, call me.
The Guardian described Queen Elizabeth, 93, giving that speech in parliament as “frail and furious”. I think this is the way to go. Thrash through age, brave and breakneck, knocking things over, falling over yourself, being deliciously rude (there’s nothing worse than polite old women). My ancient friend regularly sets her house on fire to get some attention.
Research shows that people in old-age homes watch porn most of the day. Some think it is the latest form of exercise. A friend of 80 says she gets aroused when her neighbour puts his car in reverse.
The old have learnt to be content with very little. They are invisible.
There are compensations. Every ancient human carries an emergency supply of instinct imbedded in their cellular biology, which they can suck on when all about are flummoxed. Secondly, you are too old to die young, and finally, you will at last have a deeper, existential understanding of those ignoble, bland and ignorable words people have been whispering in your ear since you were 10, “retirement savings”.