Views From My Allotment: don't let the old in

I glided through my 50s soaring through the festivities of freedom, oblivious to my own ticking time bomb. But as I hit the big 6-0, suddenly my ears perked up whenever I heard about famous people kicking the bucket, and, most crucially, the age at which they cashed in their mortality chips!

When the grim reaper decided to make a cameo in a famous person’s 60s, I’d be there, reading their life story like a gossip-hungry detective, hoping to find a trail of wild parties, boozy benders, and bad decisions as the culprit.  But once they ventured into their 70s, it was like I had my own personal “life-o-meter” running, calculating just how much sand was left in my hourglass of existence.

In my 50’s the kids had grown up and fled the mothership, they were happily navigating the galaxy of life; surviving on their own, most days.  The abusive merry-go-round I once referred to as marriage had long since had a judge’s stamp on the decree absolute; I was free. 

My 50’s didn’t get off to a spectacular start; I got breast cancer!  Apart from saying, go for your mammograms, I won’t dwell on that.  Losing a breast followed by a sound battering from chemotherapy and a few rounds with radiotherapy did eat into the first 3 years of my 50’s.  But by 53 I was living my best life.  I was transported back to being 18, a few more wrinkles and less able to hold the piss in for hours on end, but free and with all the wisdom and knowledge one gathers just being alive for 53 years.  As George Bernard Shaw wisely pointed out; youth is wasted on the young.  

At 60 I became unhealthily obsessed with calculating how long I may have left on this planet. The fear of aging had taken over.  If someone dared to hold a door open for me or let me go first, I’d give them a scowl that could freeze lava. If a kind soul offered me their seat on a train, they’d be met with a glare that could stop a charging bull in its tracks!

I came to a profound revelation that was obvious: if I didn’t actively pursue the life I wanted, I’d be stuck wrestling with the one I didn’t. It may sound like Captain Obvious chiming in, but sometimes, it takes a good scowl and some self-reflection to conquer the fear of aging!