What Is 'Old' Anyway?

Trying to live in the moment while planning for the future

Hi!

I can’t believe this is my first post of 2024 - it’s March already! But there’s been a lot going on, and I will absolutely fill you in over the coming weeks. I’ve had a wonderful 18 months of pairing back while doing an MA at Warwick University and am nearly done.

My sister sent me this picture a few days ago, a photograph of me and my daughter nearly twenty years ago. I look 12! And I think to myself that it feels like a lifetime ago, twenty years. But then I look forward twenty years and panic.

We’ve been seeing a financial planner recently. I’ve never done anything like this before, but we’re checking that pensions, etc, are all in place and having what he calls a ‘Midlife MOT.’

As part of this process, we have to think about when we want to retire, and I’m finding it really hard to imagine myself ‘old’ and think about what I would like to be doing when I’m of a certain age. I can’t picture it. I don’t know how to process it. My mum has been in a wheelchair since she was 48, so I can’t use her as a template. I try to imagine what 60 might look like or 70, and then I get scared of life slipping through my fingers.

Well, that was until this week…

I succumbed to the call of All Saints in Covent Garden on Monday. I’d waited for over an hour in Cafe Nero already while my daughter was having her hair done. My head was banging, more accurate perhaps to say my eyes were hurting from scrolling. I don’t know how everyone else does it. I looked around, and there they all sat, happily scroll-scroll-scrolling. But I was itchy, my glasses hurt on my face, my eyes felt like they’d become pyramids in my head, and the chair was suddenly the most uncomfortable thing I’d ever sat on…

I have to leave.

And so I do.

And bloody All Saints is just around the corner, one of my favourite stores. I can’t help but walk towards it, and it sees me coming, opening its blackened doors, beckoning me in. I scan, I stroke, and I see far too many things that I like. Then, as I find my way up one side to the back of the store, ready to return down the other, more scanning, more stroking, I see a woman—I hear her first.

‘Oh yes, I love these!’ she says, knowing her mind instantly.

I look across, and there stands a very stylish woman wearing a dress, easily 70 years old (her, not the dress). She’s buying herself new spangly biker boots, and her cool platform trainers wait on the floor by her side. I try not to stare, but she gives me hope. In twenty years’ time, I’ll be around her age.

I want to sit and watch her, but know that would be weird. Instead, I make my way back down the other side of the store, slower, with my ears pricked.

She. Is. So. Fabulous!

‘Oh! But I like your boots too!’ she says to the assistant, who quickly rushes to grab them off the shelf. They are the ones I’d spotted, as well.

‘We have them in stock. What size would you like?’ she asks.

‘Oh it doesn’t matter, I’ll just try those to see how they look.’

Photo by Nathan Bingle on Unsplash

I realise it’s never even crossed my mind to try on a boot that doesn’t fit! I marvel at how confident this woman is, how well she knows herself, and just how on top of life she seems.

She decides on her first choice, ‘I’ll keep them on,’ she says.

I eventually left the shop, deciding to stop worrying about getting older and tell myself that I’ll be like her when the time comes! And I bought some jeans …

…and I’ve got an MA to finish, plus two kids going through their BAs. So, one day at a time, Pipa. One day at a time!

A Midlife MOT, though, is a great idea, with some excellent food for thought!

Speak soon

Loads of love

Pipa xx