Some - or many - thoughts on growing old(er)

 Well, this seems to be a theme of our times: too many old people hanging around. 

It is a fact, that here in Europe at least, we have less and less children and more and more older people. One starts to question oneself: when exactly does one start to be "old"?? I will turn 57 this August and feel weird about the number. Seems so not fitting for me. Because there are days when I feel like 18 (very rare nowadays, I do admit), days when I am 34,  some when 56 seems ok, but not right, some when I am 67 and some right out 89  - not too speak of the days, where I feel already dead. Interesting thought, because how to define being alive and dead at the same time?

 I asked my mother, who now is now 98, some years ago, when the imminent fear of loosing her was still much alight, that she should give me a sign, when she was dyeing, so that I could drop everything, pans, children, job and car, and rush down to lower Bavaria to sit at her bed and say good bye to her. She looked at me with her small eyes, overhang by hanging eyelids who look like a curtain in a derelict house, and said: But dearest, how? I will be dead then and nobody knows how this will be like?

She has a point there. What I mean here is that feeling of "being dead alive" seems to be a part of growing older quite naturally. We have done our bits, it seems and have time, or should have, to look at the last things. Because getting older means getting older indeed: supposedly taking a step back from being "active in life", ie being an asset in the dating market ( no, because overweight and whitehaired), helping the economy of getting ahead (no, I have everything I need and anyway because there is not enough income),  being active in a social environment to do my bit ( no, too tired after the job in the evening) and so on and so forth. On the other hand apparently we are in the best time of our life and have all the power and freedom and  time to do waht we really want to do. Well, not me - but then I am not yet 65 and retired. Still 10 years to go.

Do not get me wrong, I DO NOT complain here. Indeed, I am too glad not to have to be 23 again and think out a plan what will become of me. I see it in my children, they have a lot on their plate, a lot of choice, a lot of anxiety to get it right and a lot of stress to motivate themselves to get on going and believing that there is a future, an inspiring job which pays well,  a mate and children in a little house in the country side - and this in times of Covid, high inflation, not functioning trains in Germany and the highest prices to be paid for a room with flatmates in Munich. And all of that with one mother and one income of a secretary. Thinking about that, they are doing very well. But I can smell the stress sometimes through the telephone.

But back to me. Getting old. Defining what is old age, or older age. Here many things come to my mind, not only my place in the outer world, but also in my inner world. Me, myself and I growing older -  this experience, the ultimate experience if you are honest with yourself - in relation to my children, to my siblings, to my neighbours, to my colleagues, to my body, to my hair(!), to my wardrobe and the choice of shoes, to the purchase of a car and the dreams of a "third career" which will earn serious money and make me comfortable in my really old age without hanging on the pockets of my children, well, simply: to the possibilities available.

No worries, I am not a grumpy old woman, but sometimes like to affect it, as it makes life so much easier and is a good training to become the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey. I like the idea of saying what I think - because the other, younger, people will say: let her say what she wants, she is old and it does not matter what a crazy old woman utters madly in the tram. Right they are. Just imagine the freedom of it. 

And, it does not mean that I have to become an angry and unkind sort of person, no, far too lazy for that. I like to be kind, I like  - in general - people, I like life  - also in general - and I much rather smile over my mask to a stranger in the street and than look furious at him because he did not get out of my way on the trottoir. Sadly, very very rarely someone smiles back. As if smiling at older people was something painful and to be avoided in the generations between 15 and 60. Older people though smile back, and children as well. At least in my experience. 

I have always taught my children to smile always at children, always, always, always. Often they smile back, not always. Often they look worried and bored out of their buggies into the world. It looks to me that few people smile at children nowadays, and children are the future. So, to smile at a child, is to smile at the future.