Blimey, life in the city is crazy! I watch the people go by, push by, wander by heading for a collision either with a lamppost or me, busy as they are in multiple worlds, connected to a mobile phone. But everyone seems to know about both lampposts and the folk like me who dither and dance along wide pavements, all rushing us along like those moving floors in airports. Colours brighten the morning, some barely covering bodies, others caping older skeletons, tent-like. And, still an amazement to me, no two people look alike. We have two eyes, two ears, one face with a mouth and a nose and yet, and yet, we are all different. I notice when life has bowed, bent, twisted and sometimes collapsed a face, a body. I notice the focus of traverse and in the shortest possible time. And then, there’s a woman, a man, moving slow as a snail, every footstep considered and, possibly, doubted, the young dividing by like a rush of water around a big old stone. I notice bags and dogs and sticks among the careless swing of young bodies, showing midriffs taut and flat, feet holding the ground as if they believe they always will.

Perhaps I see these images more as I consider what is happening to me, the slow (I am reliably informed) growth of an invader within, an invader with intentions. Not a welcome guest, but one that is here, just the same. My sister and I wander past and through endless shops, all promoting the Beautiful, the Perfect. Faces of models, as my daughter in law was once, teeth white as snow, body perfect, full of a life taken for granted, one without end. After all, old people are not us, they seem to say. We are miles from the collapse of skin, the way a bottom slinks down legs, the way breasts, if you have them, plummet into a waistband, the way feet become unsure on steps or pavements. I was she once. Not the model, no, but nonetheless certain I would never grow old. It just wouldn’t happen. What did actually happen to me was something I gave no thought to. Olding comes suddenly and it came to me after my husband chose to leave this world. Not immediately, not when I experienced the euphoria of my own space, the way I could play music louder than a whisper, when I could crash plates, clatter cutlery, talk on the phone in my own sitting room. But that euphoria didn’t last. Its aftermath was the realisation of Olding. Now, I don’t mind growing old at all, but I wanted to do it without aches or insecurities or self doubts, without pavement angst, without cancer, tiredness, confusion and the faffing. Oh god the faffing. Do I have my specs, where are they, they were here just a minute ago? Do I know my PIN number, the code to unlock my phone (who locked the damn thing anyway?). Did I lock the car? Where IS the car? Did I pay the chimney sweep, the gardener, the window cleaner? I did? Twice? Seriously?

And so on. To be honest, the self-doubt that comes with ‘Olding’ is pants. Big Pants. And it isn’t just me. Others of my age, particularly those widowed after a generation of marital years, compromise, security and dependence to whatever degree, tell me the same story. It is as if we have no idea who the hell we are at this wobbly point in our lives, we who were so certain, so confident, bringing up children or not, working, holding down chaos, fighting fires minute by minute. We could cater for sudden add-ons, taxi every which where, and were still able to dress up for an occasion. Now we just hope no occasion will arise, ever again. We want, or think we want, empty days, a blank calendar, but we don’t really. We probably say NO to everything because we haven’t been outside of the house for weeks, or maybe we just can’t remember how to Small Talk anymore. We think we have nothing to say of interest because our time is in the past. We apologise for ourselves, for our Olding years. We watch young things dance by, remember (vaguely) our own young thing dance, and we turn away.

I think that is a big shame. So what to do? Who can say, who can tell? I take my inspiration from other silver foxes I notice walking by the window, determined to move, regardless of pavement angst, their emptiness in life, their Big Pants questions, all of them coated, booted and sharp looking as if they know just where they are going and are excited about getting there. So, when I breathe deep and set forth of an early morning to visit the swans on the pond, I decide to look the same way as them. I smile, I walk, I greet, I cross roads about 3 times as wide as any road back home with my heart in my mouth, but I feel better about everything once I return. Perhaps this is how to live in the Olding years. Just one thing at a time. Then another.Blimey, life in the city is crazy! I watch the people go by, push by, wander by heading for a collision either with a lamppost or me, busy as they are in multiple worlds, connected to a mobile phone. But everyone seems to know about both lampposts and the folk like me who dither and dance along wide pavements, all rushing us along like those moving floors in airports. Colours brighten the morning, some barely covering bodies, others caping older skeletons, tent-like. And, still an amazement to me, no two people look alike. We have two eyes, two ears, one face with a mouth and a nose and yet, and yet, we are all different. I notice when life has bowed, bent, twisted and sometimes collapsed a face, a body. I notice the focus of traverse and in the shortest possible time. And then, there’s a woman, a man, moving slow as a snail, every footstep considered and, possibly, doubted, the young dividing by like a rush of water around a big old stone. I notice bags and dogs and sticks among the careless swing of young bodies, showing midriffs taut and flat, feet holding the ground as if they believe they always will.

Perhaps I see these images more as I consider what is happening to me, the slow (I am reliably informed) growth of an invader within, an invader with intentions. Not a welcome guest, but one that is here, just the same. My sister and I wander past and through endless shops, all promoting the Beautiful, the Perfect. Faces of models, as my daughter in law was once, teeth white as snow, body perfect, full of a life taken for granted, one without end. After all, old people are not us, they seem to say. We are miles from the collapse of skin, the way a bottom slinks down legs, the way breasts, if you have them, plummet into a waistband, the way feet become unsure on steps or pavements. I was she once. Not the model, no, but nonetheless certain I would never grow old. It just wouldn’t happen. What did actually happen to me was something I gave no thought to. Olding comes suddenly and it came to me after my husband chose to leave this world. Not immediately, not when I experienced the euphoria of my own space, the way I could play music louder than a whisper, when I could crash plates, clatter cutlery, talk on the phone in my own sitting room. But that euphoria didn’t last. Its aftermath was the realisation of Olding. Now, I don’t mind growing old at all, but I wanted to do it without aches or insecurities or self doubts, without pavement angst, without cancer, tiredness, confusion and the faffing. Oh god the faffing. Do I have my specs, where are they, they were here just a minute ago? Do I know my PIN number, the code to unlock my phone (who locked the damn thing anyway?). Did I lock the car? Where IS the car? Did I pay the chimney sweep, the gardener, the window cleaner? I did? Twice? Seriously?

And so on. To be honest, the self-doubt that comes with ‘Olding’ is pants. Big Pants. And it isn’t just me. Others of my age, particularly those widowed after a generation of marital years, compromise, security and dependence to whatever degree, tell me the same story. It is as if we have no idea who the hell we are at this wobbly point in our lives, we who were so certain, so confident, bringing up children or not, working, holding down chaos, fighting fires minute by minute. We could cater for sudden add-ons, taxi every which where, and were still able to dress up for an occasion. Now we just hope no occasion will arise, ever again. We want, or think we want, empty days, a blank calendar, but we don’t really. We probably say NO to everything because we haven’t been outside of the house for weeks, or maybe we just can’t remember how to Small Talk anymore. We think we have nothing to say of interest because our time is in the past. We apologise for ourselves, for our Olding years. We watch young things dance by, remember (vaguely) our own young thing dance, and we turn away.

I think that is a big shame. So what to do? Who can say, who can tell? I take my inspiration from other silver foxes I notice walking by the window, determined to move, regardless of pavement angst, their emptiness in life, their Big Pants questions, all of them coated, booted and sharp looking as if they know just where they are going and are excited about getting there. So, when I breathe deep and set forth of an early morning to visit the swans on the pond, I decide to look the same way as them. I smile, I walk, I greet, I cross roads about 3 times as wide as any road back home with my heart in my mouth, but I feel better about everything once I return. Perhaps this is how to live in the Olding years. Just one thing at a time. Then another.