Last Monday morning I pulled my battered old lady body out of bed. I staggered downstairs make a cup of tea and crawled back to bed for 5 minutes. I picked up my phone to check out what the rest of world has been up to and found a friend had posted this.
The truth about getting older
When you’re a teenager, you think you can do anything, and you do
Your twenties are a blur.
Thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money, and you think to yourself, “What happened to my twenties”?
Forties, you grow a little potbelly, you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud; one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother.
Fifties, you have a minor surgery- you’ll call it a procedure, but it’s a surgery.
Sixties, you’ll have a major surgery, the music is still loud, but it doesn’t matter because you can’t hear it anyway.
Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale. You start eating dinner at 2:00 in the afternoon; you have lunch around 10:00, breakfast the night before. You Spend most of your time wandering around malls, looking for the ultimate soft yogurt and muttering, “How come the kids don’t call? How come the kids don’t call”‘
The eighties, you’ll have a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse who you call mama.
I’ve seen lots of posts like this before but this one really got me thinking.
We are only as old as we feel and recently I’ve been letting myself feel old.
Feeling old vs being old
This last week I’ve decided to do an alcohol free month. The impossibly attractive vice that is binge drinking has been my firm friend for far too long and every aspect of my life suffers for it. I’m overweight, bloated and always tired. My weekends are usually a write off as I know I’ll be hung over and not want to do much. My children suffer for my eternal lethargy by losing out on a mum who wants to play with them rather than switch the TV on. Most importantly it has affected my state of mind. It’s allowed me to feel old, to feel that my time has passed.
The changing perceptions of age
When I was 10 years old my dad turned 30 and I cried my eyes out. I thought he was so old he was going to die. When I was in my teens my best Friends Mother turned 40. At her birthday party she received birthday cards. They all read’ life begins at 40′ ‘You’re over the hill’ and various other ageist clichés. The cards made my heart pound in sympathy for her. ‘Poor old lady’ I thought ‘life really is all downhill for her from here. ‘
Age is just a number
My dad is 62 now he is the least old person I have ever met. He spends his weekends mountain biking or building cars or bikes from scraps. My dad never sits down, never complains and firmly believes that age is just a number.
By comparison my friends mother has been old for as long as I can remember. Maybe those cards were the nails in the coffin of her youth. She’s overweight and unfit. She has every ailment under the sun. When I try to talk to her about 80 year old marathon runners or yogis she looks at me with disbelief. You just wait until you’re my age she will mutter.
But now I am her age. I’m 42. I have my feet firmly planted on the two sides of my life – youth and old age. It’s up to me now to decided which path I want to follow… that of my father or that of my friends mother. I can keep drinking, eating bad food, and making excuses not to exercise. I can blame my ailments and illnesses on old age and spend my weekend mornings in bed feeling sorry for myself. Or I can take a long hard look in the mirror and admit that most of what I’m feeling is self-inflicted and there is only one way to fix it.
Turning my life around
This weekend will be my first booze free weekend since I had the twins nearly 6 years ago. I’ve planned a run with my husband in the morning and riding with the kids on Sunday. I have a fete to attend and a bbq. I am excited because I know I’ll be feeling well and energized for those things. After just 5 days of no alcohol, healthy eating and daily exercise, getting out of bed is easier. I’m sleeping better. I’ve lost a pound or two and my eyes aren’t swollen in the morning. All my gripes and complaints. All the time spent on the internet googling various ailments. They are all a placebo. A pill to take so that I don’t have to face the reality that the only poison in my life is self-administered.
All life is a choice
I am reminded of a great article I read once. The 11 most important choices you will make in your life. Everything in life comes down to choice. There is no situation you can’t escape from however dire. Even with situations that seem impossible – genuine ill health, for example – you have a choice with how you deal with it. If these are the last days of your life how will you choose to live them?
I choose to be young. Forever. I choose never to succumb to the hallmark clichés of middle age. I choose to be healthy, to be fit and to be happy. I choose to be all those kooky grandmas that are still water-skiing and dancing and living life to their fullest. I choose not to wake up every weekend in a hungover fug and spend the day longing for my sofa. I choose that whatever befalls me as I grow older that I will continue to find beauty in the unremarkable and happiness in a sea of doubt.
It’s never too late to turn your life around. It’s never too late to reclaim the vibrancy of your youth. After all age is just a number.
The post The truth about getting old appeared first on The Expat Mummy.
