Well... I could add my own take on crossing 60...but being lucky enough to have good health, I still feel as I did in my forties..so what I have to say would essentially be the same as this 40+ account. "Life is good... Especially compared to the alternative" sums it up neatly. On 2 Nov 2015 4:05 pm, "Udhay Shankar N" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Much of the population of this list will feel this excellent piece only too > keenly (including yr. humble correspondent) > > Udhay > > http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/so-much-lost-and-gained-by-middle-age > > So much lost and gained by middle age > PUBLISHED OCT 11, 2015, 5:00 AM SGT > > Wonderful and treacherous contradictions await as we round the bend of our > late 40s > Rohit Brijnath > Senior Correspondent > > Trim and elegant, her voice has the steady strength of a person who has > worn life for 54 years. "Men," she says, "do not look at me any more. I > don't feel I am sexually attractive." Those of middle age will briefly > pause. In her small strings of words we can hear a hint of wistfulness and > a whisper of melancholy. Something is lost. And yet the beauty of middle > age is that so much is also gained. > > Middle age - somewhere from late 40s to round about 60 - is confronting yet > charming, fabulous yet fiendish. It sneaks up on us and snips away at our > cells and self-esteem. It holds on to us by our love handles and won't let > go. We don't want to look in the mirror but we can't bear not to. The new > wrinkle like a bruise, the new line like a cruel cut. Hair disappears from > the Indian head and then miraculously reappears on the shoulders. Alexander > McCall Smith wrote beautifully of W.H. Auden's face, "famously lined with > what he called its geological catastrophe", but surely we are not there > yet? > > If you're middle-aged, it's possible you've also probably lost your > spectacles again. Calm down, there they are, perched on your head. Now you > can return to checking the fat content on the yogurt jar. Our favourite > four-letter word is yoga, we fervently discuss diets as we once did The > Doors and we own minor degrees in medicine which allow us to recite 10 ways > to cut down your cholesterol even if you didn't want to know. We're > passably vain, increasingly philosophical and remarkably aware. It's rather > nice actually. > > Miraculously, we're younger than our fathers were at the same age, yet > older than we ever thought we'd become. In my 20s, I sniggered at the > balding guy in the plane who forsook in-flight whiskey on grounds of > hydration and lay back with a black sleeping mask over his eyes, like a > temporarily retired Zorro. > > Now I am him. > > How did that happen? How did everyone become younger than us? What's with > all this wind? > > Some of us have been to our first facials and some to our first funerals. > When you bury a peer, vincibility is upon you. A colleague, 51, with gentle > sadness, tells me that death, like a worthless thief, has slipped into her > brain. "It's a constant refrain. How will I die, sickness, hospitalisation, > the moment I learn I am very ill, old age, loneliness." She is not alone. > Birthdays, for some, are less fun now, for they see them more as a > countdown than a celebration. > > We almost don't need to read Atul Gawande and his brilliant Being Mortal > for we can feel it. On the tennis court, a ball streaks by and my mind says > "go" but my unmoving body only smirks at the instruction. But we're making > our peace with middle age, accepting that time is like water into the > earth, once gone, unretrieved. Yes, I can't move as fast but I play smarter > tennis. Or at least I think so. Even as we physically diminish gently, > elsewhere we rapidly grow. > > When I ask my friends and colleagues about middle age, optimism swirls in > my inbox. Of course, the knee aches, a mortgage weighs, a lost job scares > and divorce at first is like being marooned. To start in love again is not > impossible, only exhausting. Yet even as our dreams change - we can no > longer be astronauts - life seems to have a fullness. Men my age are > discovering cooking and women run marathons. On Thursday, a friend messages > to ask if I want to join a trek to the base camp of Everest. We're figuring > out that this is not an ending, just a start of something else. > > Women I speak to feel liberated, as if they're done with role-playing and > duty and being shackled to convention. A former advertising executive who > now paints tells me she is doing precisely what she wants and doesn't > require anyone's approval; a talented editor mails me to say "I don't > really care what people think about me"; a marketing person simply insists > she is more "confident". > > We're cooler and calmer and if young people call us "old" then we reassure > ourselves that some of them think Louis Armstrong walked on the moon (a > young man told me this recently). We pause, and even grin a little, when we > fill out forms and find we are eligible for age discounts. We've long > figured out life is unfair - a friend who never smoked and hardly drank > found himself with a heart condition - but we possess more solutions. > > We know loss and defeat and careers stalled and idiot bosses and we've > survived. No, better still, maybe we have found balance. The people of the > erogenous zone but also of the ergonomic chair. A writer, just turned 50, > sent me this lovely mail from Bangalore: "I am very comfortable with myself > and very much more self-aware. I understand my strengths and weaknesses and > I tend to address what isn't so great about myself. When I was younger I > never did bother." > > I find myself less scared of solitude and more in tune with Ogden Nash who > wrote that "Middle age is when you're sitting at home on a Saturday night > and the telephone rings and you hope it isn't for you." My heroes are old > and wonderfully lined - the Rolling Stones evidently gather no moss - and > as I listen to them I crave space to think. > > There are too many classics I haven't read but too bloody bad, for now > there's nothing we Have To Do in life. Except read Barbara Strauch's The > Secret Life Of The Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents Of The > Middle-Aged Mind. In an interview with the New York Times, she noted that > in middle age we're better at "inductive reasoning and problem solving - > the logical use of your brain and actually getting to solutions. We get the > gist of an argument better. We're better at sizing up a situation and > reaching a creative solution". > > Of course, we knew all that. > > Maybe we've figured out that happiness can be redefined as we go along and > it is contentment anyway that is obtainable. A life just more meaningful. > In the mirror we squint not just at the unflinching invasion of grey but > also, hopefully, at how we've measured up as human beings. > > Of all things spoken to me on middle age, I will carry this for a while: A > colleague told me she isn't interested in the size of your pay cheque or > the glint of your car. She wants to know, is there kindness within you, do > you wear compassion? By now, hopefully, we see life beyond our own small > selves. If we haven't learnt this by middle age, it's getting late. By now, > with less time before us than behind, we have to be better than we were > when we started. > > And so on we tread, tired some days, victorious on others, gym bag on > shoulder, pill box in pocket. Some days we sit with our adult children who > are stocked with ideas and suffused with energy and we feel triumph and yet > also our age. Some days we call on our mothers, 82, who peer through > sizeable glasses and examine our receding hairlines and tut-tut at the > swell of a paunch. "You're not old," they say with a smile. Only when we go > home, you see, do even the middle-aged reclaim a little of their youth. > > > -- > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) >
