Ageing like fine wine in a broken bottle

The other day I woke up and couldn’t get out of bed.

And it wasn’t even hangoverrelated – despite it being a Tuesday. It was age-related. The worst kind of related. Apart from familyrelated.

I didn’t know if I’d been shot or was suffering from some kind of stroke, but I couldn’t move my legs in any functional way, so I just went back to sleep.

Problems are best dealt with later, preferably by someone else.

We’re all getting older – you probably don’t need me to tell you that.

You’re reading a newspaper in 2023 so I know you know – but it’s just not as gradual as everyone would have you believe.

You’re a kid for what feels like 85 years, during which time you’re punched by your siblings repeatedly, you fall while walking upstairs, you lacerate your nasal cavities when picking your nose daily, you drop from trees like a drunk monkey, and yet you bounce back within minutes.

Gravity is not your friend, but luck is.

Going to the doctor is an absolute waste of time because they’re going to hand you a painkiller and a plaster. And charge a fee.

Or an antibiotic, a painkiller and a plaster. And charge a larger fee.

Then you’re a teenager, getting tackled on rugby fields by people 10 times your size, funnelling barrels of cheap wine before class, drunkenly diving headfirst into pools, and generally just thinking you’re invincible.

You skateboard off stair rails, leap off roofs, and consider a show called ‘Jackass’ to be the height of comedy. But you bounce back. Or you die. But mostly you bounce back.

After this comes university – which is one big drunken pub crawl.

Then you have your first kid and the next week you’re so grey you look like Neil Diamond’s grandmother. Gravity is not your friend. Neither is luck. Neither is Neil Diamond.

If you’re a man, you start losing your hair. If you’re a woman, you start growing facial hair.

Activities like walking and sitting have to be planned years in advance. Stay active? Not likely. Stay alive? Less likely. Want to sneeze? You might as well book your casket right now.

When I eventually rolled myself out of bed two days after my sudden full-body seizure, I was able to crawl across the highway to a physio, where I was faced with a selection of pamphlets entitled ‘Back Pain and You: It’s Not Looking Good’, ‘So You Made It to 40? That’s Probably Far Enough’, ‘What Are You Going to do With Your Remains When You Die

Soon, Really, Really Soon?’

Did you know that 80% of people suffer from back pain?

That seems like an unreasonably high number for a generation of people who cloned a sheep and invented Viagra.

I feel like evolution got to a point, and then just gave up. Why are our backs and necks incapable of keeping us upright for more than three decades?

Wouldn’t it be easier if we went back to walking on all fours like we did way back in our university days?

Why are scientists so focused on researching cat diets, erection pills, and global warming solutions when our backs are one sneeze away from disintegration?

When my physiotherapist explained that my back pain was probably, very possibly, but maybe not actually because of some age-old nerve damage that I can’t remember experiencing, I asked if I could heal it with six months of bed rest.

She said the modern treatment was actually more exercise and activity, so I started crying and telling her my life story in the hope of earning sympathy, to which she replied she’s not that type of therapist and here’s a pamphlet on ‘How to Fix That Imaginary Back Injury with High Kicks by Jane Fonda’.

Needless to say, my back pain is here to stay, and I will be medicating it with some ageold writer’s wisdom – Netflix, painkillers and booze.

I think it’s safe to assume that

I’ll be ageing like a fine wine in my house - in that there ain’t no way I’m going to reach maturity.