Wherever I go I’m followed by old people.
Old people in shops standing in checkout queues and fumbling with digital cash cards; old people walking through doorways and holding up people like me who have places to go, people to meet; old people nodding off in the library; old people in the supermarket; old people in cafés; and old people stopping to chat to me.
I went to a wonderful Afternoon Delight performance of local talent at Riverlinks last weekend and, blow me down, the 200-strong audience was a sea of white hair and Zimmer frames.
This is all very odd and sometimes annoying because I am, after all, only 23 years old.
A week ago, we had a pair of elderly relatives stay with us for a night while on their travels. They were on a nostalgia trip to revisit all their old haunts while they were still mobile. They arrived with a special pillow and a little black bag for medications. The evening dinner conversation was a litany of pill comparisons and morning routines, medical procedures and peculiar dietary requirements.
After half an hour there was a lull in the conversation and the oldest, aged in his mid-70s, asked about my morning pill routine.
I said my only morning routine involved coffee, muesli, yoghurt and fruit.
He was astounded. “You mean you don’t take any pills at all?” he asked.
“Nope — not unless you call a glass of champagne at 4.30pm daily medication,” I replied.
“What about medical procedures or hospital visits — don’t you have any stories to share?” he asked, obviously digging for the gotcha moment of age denial.
“Nope — never spent a night in hospital,” I replied, with a twinge of disappointment that I was unable to take part in this conversation of hospital terror one-upmanship.
He sat in silence as he contemplated the cruel and capricious nature of life.
Here was a man who had once played every sport available, chased balls around fields and courts and courses for the endorphin rush of victory until he was sore and breathless and whose glory stories now consisted of surviving heart and bowel scares, daily muscular pain, joint failure and pill routines.
And here was another man whose life of indolence and champagne had kept him out of hospital and pill-free. But of course, this man was only 23, so no surprise there at all.
But perhaps the strangest thing of all happens when I brush my teeth. There, staring back at me in the mirror, is this old bloke with wrinkled, blotchy skin, and eyebags under a hairless dome. Who is this person, I ask myself? He’s nothing if not persistent because he follows me around everywhere, and I see him every day in window reflections and mirrors.
Here’s another peculiar thing that’s been happening over the past few years: every modern pop song sounds like a Beatles pastiche. All those indie folk songs or guitar and keyboard bands and Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift chords and melodies and studio production techniques are echoes of sounds I first heard ages ago. Is there nothing new in this universe any more?
Ageing is a peculiar and subjective thing. It seems our minds and bodies run on different time scales from about the age of 25. By the time we’re 30, we think we’re still 25 and so it goes. Psychologists have compared this subjective ageing to life on Mars, where one Earth decade equals only 5.3 Martian years.
When I was at work surrounded by 20-somethings it was fun and I was energised, but there were occasions when I felt old, particularly when it came to learning new digital procedures. Now that I’m retired, I spend a lot of my time with other retirees, but I feel young.
All my friends say you’re only as old as you feel. So I live on Mars and feel 23.
Until I look in the mirror or try to play a McCartney melody on the guitar, or I drink one glass of champagne too many.
Then it’s back to Earth time.
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