Boom! I am 60 years old today. And I get free travel around London for the rest of my life. (crazy!)
Now I can afford the bus I can give up having to cycle everywhere :)
Officially old.
First person said ‘Congratulations’. What for? ‘Congratulations on making it, on still being alive.’ Yes! Being this fortunate is enough to celebrate in its own right.
Everyone else says “Age is just a number; you are only as old as you feel.”
That’s bollocks.
I feel young, I dress young, I may look young (compared to my father on his 60th) , but my body is the same age as his was - 60. Between 60 and 70 our bodies deteriorate enormously. The average age when someone can no longer live a fully active life is 70. Just ten years’ time for me.
My dad had a dementia stroke at 70 and never recovered, Helen’s dad died of cancer at 65.
We may dress younger, and we act younger now but when we look in the mirror in the morning (or at the selfie pic late at night) we know. We know we really are getting older. The clothes might hide it, the attitude to life might hide it. But the face gives it away - so do the aches.
So, like someone diagnosed with cancer or dementia, at 60 you realise that your life won’t go on forever, you finally realise what’s important in life. It’s not stuff. Its friends and family. Its spending time with other people.
My only regret in life is I didn’t know that earlier. Life is spent being conditioned that buying stuff is the way to happiness, it isn’t.
Life doesn't last forever, spend it being kind to friends & family.
That’s the aim for the rest of my life now, to be as active as my body will allow and to be as kind as I can to others.