#28 - Old age (part 1)

I feel prematurely old.

Grumpy old man.

When it's cold, my joints ache, no joke.

It's not just my physical ageing that worries me, it's my mental state too. My memory is quite bad. I can be in the middle of a conversation and... wait, what was I talking about?

Oh my gosh, I'm going to be 18 soon and this is how I feel? What will I be like in 60 years time?

I don't enjoy what the young people do, I don't understand what they say. Their constant references to butter ("dat girl is buttaz"), illness ("sick one, fam") and random *brrrap* noises puzzled me rather. I have since learnt what these terms mean, but there were some confusing moments before that.

Anyway, as much as I can't wait to be the world's most awesome grandma (you know I'll be), I am a little wary of old age. I mean the real deal, not my 70 year old mind trapped in a 17 year old's body.

Pros of being old:
- You can do anything you damn well want, and blame it on your old age if you get into trouble
- You can be an awesome grandma and spoil your grandkids
- You can terrorise your neighbours and obtain a reputation for being "the crazy old lady/man who lives down the road"
- You have experience, and are now worldly and wise. (Maybe.)
- No one can tell you off if you buy loads of sweets
- People will (well, should) give up their seats for you on the train or the bus, and you can be like, "Hell yeah, bitches, make way for the BEAST!"
- You can dye your hair all sorts of colours/wear odd clothes and get away with it
- You have all the time in the world...

Incontinent old lady with a zimmerframe. Poor girl.

Cons of being old:
- You will most likely suffer from some chronic or degenerative disease
- You may become jealous of youths
- Everything sags. Quite literally.
- You have experience... but you're too damn old to do anything with it
- If you get plastic surgery, you may end up looking like a frozen duck
- You can't dress young anymore, or else you'll be accused of being mutton dressed as lamb
- People will patronise you and treat you like an idiot
- You may well be milling around until your imminent death

Woah. What originally started off as a light-hearted look on old age has become some morbid view on life. I'm sorry, dear readers.

But then you wouldn't want to be some monstrous Peter Pan creature who never grew old. That's weird.
Perhaps even weirder, Sleeping Beauty, who is, what, 18 when she goes to sleep, and wakes up a century later, at the grand old age of 118. (Beauty sleep taken to a whole new level there.) And some young strapping prince kisses this ancient pensioner old enough to be his great-grandmother and marries her. That's wrong. But you don't think about it when you're young.

Anyway, cheerio, m'dears, I hope you have a pleasant evening. I shall leave you with a quote from Ashley Montagu, anthropologist and humanist:
"I want to die young at a ripe old age."