The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey (1891)
I’ve been thinking a lot about getting old recently. I’ve been thinking about my parents getting older (as indeed, they must). I’ve been thinking about my friends getting older. I’ve been thinking about myself getting older.
I was out this evening with a group of friends. One asked me “do you fancy joining me on an 18-30 holiday this summer”. I answered, in all truthfulness that I “couldn’t imagine anything worse”. “So?” she said, “what do you like doing on holiday?”
What do I like doing?
I like long days interspersed with long meals. Good food, better wine, excellent company. I like doing things and seeing things and experiencing things. I like using my hands. I like being so tired at the end of the day that I want to collapse with a tall glass of something cool. I like photos of people and places I remember, of memories and stories. I like doing things that I’ve never done before, or, if I have, that I don’t do too often. I like that feeling at the end of the day that I’ve achieved something. I like talking to friends. I like meeting new people. I like long conversations and raucous card games. I like never feeling that I have to do something or be someone.
This Sunday was possibly the best day I’ve had since I left the UK. Sunday morning saw me drive to France to meet up with a friend of my mothers – we went to a local village (all medieval towers and stone buildings. Cobbled streets and side cafes) to their annual car boot sale. Rifling through junk, finding some treasures, all in the boiling sun.
Footsore and weighed down with goodies, we then went back to her house on the lakeside where we spent the rest of the morning collecting leaves and chopping bamboo and planting flowers and making bonfires.
A late lunch with a chilled rose and then onto sanding down a table, vanishing it, waxing it, ready for it to go in the back of the car and back home. An evening spent out on the terrace watching the sun go down over the mountains dodging the kamikaze mosquitos.
A cup of tea, a good book (Oscar Wilde plays since you ask) and bed. To sleep like the dead.
A good day all round.
Does this mean I’m getting old?!
The fact you can still easily do all that means that no, you are not getting old.
I can’t think of much worse than an 18-30s holiday and I’m still very much young and silly.
I didn’t mean old physically – I hope this won’t happen for a loooooong time. I meant old, mentally. To which the answer seems to be yes, I am a 40 year old trapped in a 28 year old’s body!
yes.
Shush you – I happen to know for a FACT that you like gardening.
Never said I wasn’t old. In fact, I’m in a pretty good position to confirm your ancientness…..
You like sherry.
There is nothing more to say.
I’ve never liked the idea of an 18-30 holiday. That being said, I do like to go somewhere warm and sunny, laze by a pool all day and then go out for a lovely dinner followed by a couple of drinks at night. I just can’t be bothered with the “mad for it” 18-30 crowd. Plus I will LITERALLY be too old for it in less than 6 months…
I don’t think it makes you old anyway. It just means you aren’t a chav!
Don’t get me wrong, I can do lazing… just not all day, every day. I like to *do* stuff. Otherwise I get bored!
Not old; since when does doing something one enjoys a label for being old? Besides, 18-30 holidays are all hype and hangover and actually, in retrospect, not that much fun at all.
Now there speaks a man from experience? C’mon Bren, tell us you 18-30 escapades. We won’t tell anyone, promise!
Nope, it just means that you properly apprceciate all that is good about life.
Good friends, good places, good food, good wine, good times.
I’ve used ‘good ‘ much, be we all need to get a bit of good in our lives.
Good point!
Old? Me too. I spent Saturday afternoon having lunch at a garden centre and thoroughly enjoyed it. No hope left!
None whatsoever.
But at least we’re not as bad as Blonde – she’s got a cat and everything
I’m old. I don’t care. I like pubs that are quiet and have chairs to sit on. I prefer gin and tonic to most other drinks. I’m going to a festival this year and have paid a lot of money to ensure i don’t sleep in a tent! I like my own bed, garden centres and decorating. I am buying a 4 bed house in the country in which to grow old and wear purple in and be a bit of a mad old batty woman. Yes i’m 28. I don’t care.
I like all those things too! Now I just need to find people here who do as well and I’m sorted!
Please don’t ascribe those things to getting old. Your tastes are changing. That’s really all there is to it. To call it “getting old” implies some negative connotation that is inappropriate.
I enjoyed the “likes” paragraph. It read a bit like an ad on a dating site.
Changing tastes – yes, I like that a lot better than ‘getting old’.
“I would climb that mountain with you but I’m afraid my tastes have changed”
No. It just means you have discovered the finer things in life. … friendship and doing things you enjoy, as opposed to getting plastered and not being able to remember or appreciate it! I wouldn’t touch 18-30 with a bargepole.
I like all the things you like, so I must be old with you.
Trust me, you’re not getting old, just maturing and knowing what you want – it’s like that scene in Friends that goes :-
Ross: How sad are we?
Joey: Yeah, I know.
Chandler: Y’know what? We’re not sad, we’re not sad, we’re just not 21 anymore. Y’know? I’m 29 years old, damnit! And I want to sit in a comfortable chair, and watch television and go to bed at a reasonable hour!
Joey and Ross: Yeah!
Joey: Yeah! And I like to hang out in a quiet place where I can talk to my friends.
Chandler and Ross: Yeah!
Ross: And so what if I like to go home, throw on some Kenny G, and take a bath!
Hahaha – I love that scene.
And it’s true. Apart from the Kenny G – I’ve never really got into him. Frank Sinatra on the other hand
count me as old then as well…
sounds wonderful
Hoorah! So the general consensus is that my blogreaders and I can all set up a happy commune somewhere doing *stuff*.
Almost like a cult. But not scary. I like it.
“I like long days interspersed with long meals.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Perfection.