Ageing
Thoughts From The Thinking Step
17th July, 2019
Ageing…….
I often forget how old I am. With the big 6-0 on the horizon next year, I still feel like I’m in my 20s and run around as if energy is my right: until I get home and collapse, unable to lift a finger!
Don’t get me wrong: I really don’t care about age it’s just that the reality of the years that have flown by and the chance to reflect on the many changes in our lives/ourselves, brings me up , ‘’ by the britches’’, so to speak!
Silly things like booking meetings later in the day, to give my face a chance to wake up! Especially my eyes, which look sleepy until 11am at the least! Laughing at the team who tell me I look tired: I’m not tired: I’m just nearly 60! Finding and colouring more and more grey hairs – and having to accept that the bones and joints which hold me up, aren’t holding up too well themselves LOL!…….it’s a reality check!
Time does fly though, doesn’t it? So much changes in a blink of an eye. We are now living in a world for Artificial Intelligence is celebrated and being developed at the speed of knots – yet we ourselves still haven’t conquered how to communicate properly! Cars can be fuel, electric or hybrid? What’s that all about? There are three of us in our marriage: my husband, me and the most annoying female AI who hides in the little black thingy in our kitchen and talks back at me! It’s crazy!
Only yesterday, as a very ‘’outspoken’’ sales manager, I was predicting that the new fangled Fax Machine would never catch on – and now it’s run it’s course and is all but obsolete! Phew! It’s all going too quickly…..
Yet, it’s still yesterday for many memories. I’m sitting with my grandparents every time I eat a pomegranate and remember them gifting this wondrous fruit to me. Or I’m 7 and sitting behind my Mum , watching her get ready to go to her work, thinking she was the most beautiful woman in the world! Then I’m 12 and reluctantly taking my younger sisters everywhere with me, despite protesting loudly…..where does it go?
When the sirens sounded across Cyprus this week, I was reminded again that, however the time has passed since 1974 and whatever the rights and wrongs, opinions and facts, for so very many Cypriots, it’s still that moment: the moment of change and loss; conflict and fears ………and those feelings will never go away for them.
It’s so easy to dismiss time; to turn away from an older person/their wisdom – or worse, their seemingly lack of energy or joy due to their physical condition yet we’re all on this journey together: racing through this universe at the speed of knots, ageing every second, (if we are lucky) and growing together in a world which seems to be growing colder in terms of value of the person and their soul . As we rush towards developing the future, maybe we’re not holding tight to the lessons of the past.
Age? Bring it on! Learning to live – yes , please let this continue – and being human? Well, I’d rather be wrinkly Real Intelligence then perfect Artificial Intelligence, even if that comes with fears, pain and loss.
As Winnie the Pooh said to Piglet, when he asked Piglet the question: “”What day is it ?””, “”Today’’, replied Piglet.
“Oh good””, replied Winnie the Pooh. “My favourite day!””
