THE TRUTH ABOUT GETTING OLD....

 Forty is the old age of youth, and fifty is the youth of old age.  

It's not just that you haven't heard of any of the bands/acts in the Top 40, it's that you don't care that you haven't.  (Severe cases will still call it ‘The Hit Parade’) 

Remember these?

Similarly, you see strange words trending on Twitter, click on them to see what they are, and discover they're some band you've never heard of. They all look like children to you. You consider posting a Lou Reed video but don't get round to it... 

In order to get yourself going in the morning, you don’t just need a strong cup of coffee.  You need several - and a can of WD40. 

Remember when you used to hate staying in on a Saturday night?  Now, don’t you hate it if you have to go out?

...your idea of a good Saturday night is probably, like mine, a nice bath, clean bedclothes, and a jolly good film, watched in bed …

To think I used to go and do this sort of thing BY CHOICE....

(actually, thinking of a ‘nice bath’ as something of a treat is another tell-tale sign!) 

D'you remember about fifteen years ago when, if you’d put on a ‘few pounds’, you could just diet for a fortnight and it’d be gone?  Doesn’t work anymore, does it?

In your twenties, you and your friends have phone calls to discuss men and clothes.  In your thirties, it’s jobs, children, weight.  In your forties you discuss ‘life’.  In your fifties, you compare ailments … okay, you tell me about your cataracts, and then we’ll do my arthritic knee… 

The actors you fancy on telly have grey hair and laughter lines aplenty …

You probably speak your mind a bit more … perhaps you're becoming a bit of a dotty old bird, without realising it... this is me and my similarly old and peculiar sister - or is it Wayne's World??

You can now look at fresh-faced young women and admire their beauty, without feeling jealous; they're so far away from you that they might as well be another species.

Look - no sagging jowls!!  (me on the right, aged 30)

You find that you’re more accepted by older, straighter people.  The sort that used to look at you with a faint air of disapproval/envy/discomfort.  This is because you no longer appear edgy, hip, groovy and 'out there'.  Well, not on first impression, anyway....

However many early nights you have, however many AFDs (alcohol free days), you still don’t look as good as you did the morning after a whole weekend of debauchery ten years ago.

It’s so hard to find clothes that look nice without being too young for you or too middle aged, but that still disguise all those bits of you that aren’t as pretty as they once were.... 

You've probably been saying things like 'yes, well, life isn't fair' to your children/step-children/nieces and nephews for about ten years, now - you remember your father saying that to you? 

If you are lucky enough to have parents still alive, you worry about them in the way they worried about you when you were a child 

Do you remember the things your parents used to say when you watched Top Of The Pops?  Now, when you see the currently chart-popular on television, you say all those things, too.  "Why can't she just stand there and sing it without waving her arms around?"  "Why is he wearing that stupid hat?"

Your youth is a magic memory of long ago, when the world was so different, in so many ways...
... and you can bore for England talking about it, too ... 

Isn't it nice?  You take more pleasure in standing and staring; the light in the sky, the leaves rustling in the breeze ~ ~ ~  and you do things like taking pictures of your houseplants to put on Twitter.

Hangovers last days, not hours.  That’s if you can manage to get drunk enough to get one in the first place, without falling asleep half way through, or asking for a nice cup of tea. 

You find it frustrating that younger people don't take your advice.  You thought your dad didn't know what he was talking about as well, didn't you, eh?

Each birthday, you contemplate how old you are and think, how the hell did that happen?!

I'm the one in the white shawl - aged 10 days!

If you go to see your favourite old bands on their first tour for six years (or whatever), the audience is full of lots of grey haired people like you.

You probably look back on all your mistakes, sometimes. I bet you wouldn't change many of them, though, because they've made you the person you are now.  But you might still make mental lists of 'things I wish I'd known at 18'.  This used to be a regular feature in the Sunday Times when I was about 21.  I didn't understand it at the time; I read it, but of course I thought I was immortal, then, like all people of that age, and didn't realise that one day my whole life wouldn't be all stretched out in front of me, waiting to be filled.

When you were 20, you thought 40 was past it, didn't you?  When you're over 50, though, you realise that even 60 is still alive and kicking..!! 

The best bit about getting old, though, is the fact that you've got there at all.

Amen!