Old age

Confessions of an old-age pensioner – by Punya

During my yearly check-up at the cardiologist’s I was chatting with another patient, about my age, who was booked with another consultant. We were kind of betting who would get called up first. She was bright and for a while I pondered if it would really be appropriate… if I asked her a question which was pressing against the sides of my brain?

Sitting in the waiting room for that long time, watching all the old codgers shuffling, or being wheeled, in, I was wondering if – from the perspective of society – there was any use for us old people to still be around (in particular as we need so much extra care).

I took the courage to formulate my question: “Do you think there is a need for us old people to still be around in this society?” or something to this effect. The woman clutched her bag in front of her and sat upright with a scared look (a bit like that card in the Osho Neo-Tarot deck, you know which one, Worry/Anxiety). Then seeing my inviting expression, she relaxed in her seat, and started ruminating, “Well, we have lived longer. We have more wisdom. We can give good advice.”

We smiled at each other. “Thanks so much for this beautiful answer.”

As a child I thought that people were divided into various categories, the way there were sausage dogs like ours, or poodles like my friend’s, or the dreaded Dobermans. The categories were us (the kids), middle-aged people like the parents, and then old people like our grandparents. It took me a while to understand that one category would grow (or age) from one into the other. What a revelation it was to hear (and eventually understand) that Grandma was once the Mama of my mother, who was once as small as I was!

As a teenager it seemed there was some kind of respect towards older people. I see myself in the grey streets of Milan, in a heavy coat against the damp cold, coming across various people. I was weary of older men because they had a horrible way of looking at me. I saw older women, some very elegant and bejewelled, some with dark scarves and poorly-maintained shoes. There were only few children in the streets as the traffic was too busy.

It was more when I became a middle-aged woman myself that I started to despise older women. Despise is a strong word, but it fits here. I could not stand them! Look at those wrinkly elbows (I will make sure I put cream on my elbows every night – you can actually tell from the elbows if someone is over 35!). Look at that heavy make-up, and wrinkles around the lips. That was fear speaking, the fear that very soon that will be my look. No turning back!

Then one fine morning you take a shower, dry yourself off, time for tonic and cream. You look in the mirror and ask: “Who is that?” This is not a line stolen from a stand-up comedian. This has really happened to me. I thought someone else was looking at me from the mirror. Oh, my goodness…

Now, pushing well into the later part of ‘old age’, a few considerations. For one, you are totally invisible to the younger generation. You can walk along the path, listening to the spring song of the birds. The kids come back from school, you walk past. You do not exist. They do not see you at all. You are not on their radar.

It happens maybe once a year that a teenager, when walking alone, actually looks at you and then even smiles – as if he also felt recognised. (In my opinion, children in England are not particularly loved, unlike in Mediterranean countries, where they are respected and spoilt to death. Here children are considered more of a nuisance. Just part of some hormonal and societal compulsion. It would not surprise me if boarding schools were invented by the British – not only because of the late vast Empire, but because of the… shall we call it ‘coldness’?)

I catch myself (mainly when watching programmes on TV) with some prejudices (very short-lasting thoughts – but they are there) with regard to women and older people. Can it really be that this woman knows all these things, or have they chosen her to introduce the programme just because she is a woman? (It then turns out she is a Professor in Physics at such-and-such University!)

Then there was this HUGE machine (it looked like one end of the large hadron collider) and this little old man is standing in front of it (standing, but not quite upright). Who wants to listen to the croaky voice of this old man? (It turned out he was the inventor of that machine!)

The good thing is that these two moments changed my compulsive ‘-ist’ thoughts. From now on, when I see old men (or women), I wonder what they might have done in their life, no big inventions necessarily, but many hours of work, getting the money together to raise a family, hours and hours of tedious work just to get buy, maybe. Football, beer with friends – a life!

During a recent family get-together, where I was the oldest person at the table (being 11 years older than Amiten, who is the oldest brother in the family), I noticed how not having had children of my own, all time scales have been blurred. Someone so young sitting next to me turned out to have a daughter (just across the table) who had her own (stunningly beautiful) daughter, sitting just a bit further up the table. So the young woman sitting next to me is a grandmother?

Now here I am, definitely an old person, but if I close my eyes, I can still see myself packing my bags… and the world is mine!

Featured image by Elisa Photography on Unsplash

My old age – a jewel – Insights by Amrita Suha. “A sweet joyful old age is mischievously stinging the top of my mouth and is patiently leading me to continue to explore the world within and without with an attentive and amused gaze!” (February 2024)
A Story about Aging – A narrated AI video by artist Kelly Boesch