Some months ago, a stray meeting with an elderly man set me thinking of what it meant to grow older.
"I wake up with all these aches and pains and I don't want to move," he said, "and I envy my grandchildren their ability to run around the place. But when I long to be young again, I think of the entrance exams I'd have to do and the impossibly difficult curriculum and the line-up for jobs, and I realise that I'm better off the way I am! Youth is a difficult time and only the young can manage to weather it!"
So all ye middle-aged matrons who dim the lights before ye squirm before the tell-tale mirror, take heart! Let gravity and the middle-aged spread take its toll - what do a few wrinkles and crinkles, grey hair and sagging jowls matter when there are so many compensations? Don't fret when suddenly, overnight, you're called 'Aunty' - when you've been doing your best to keep that spring in your step and your hair interestingly streaked like someone half your age!
I love growing older. The inevitable slowing down and not being able to keep the candle alight, forget burn it at both ends, is compensated by less sleep - so there's just as much time to do the things I want to: like reading the same book one more time just because I love it so much.
Where earlier I would at least try to be in the loop with books everyone was talking about, or make a determined effort to be intellectually well-rounded and go through the iconic philosophers of the time, now there are no such restricting compulsions.
So it's Harry Potter for the fourth time or Paulo Coelho or a frothy historical romance or a close-to-nature tale - whatever it takes to get me hooked post-midnight or in the hours before dawn.
If the slow pace of meaningful cinema makes me impatient and still confused about the director's method or the script writer's meaning, down goes the button on the remote and I change for a totally meaningless, altogether more enjoyable evening of deep belly laughs.
Just as good
What about the shortcuts with the chores? Veggies taste just as good if they're snapped in half instead of being meticulously chopped, a slow burner can do the work of that endless frying, and best of all, one doesn't have to worry if the "little one" is developing the right food habits because he is now the largest in the family and will probably scoff at any attempts at putting a wholesome meal in front of him, so accustomed is he to eating what and when he likes! Better still, I don't need to mend and wash; it doesn't matter that his clothes are grimy and torn - that's the fashion!
All those verbal family barbs that would have me in tears in a time long past when I tried so hard to be appreciated - whoosh, a wave of the magic wand of age and they are gone! The result is not only a happier me but a closer relationship with the rest of the family and that's what we were striving for through those youthful years of silly pinpricks and getting one's back up!
Best of all, age gives creative licence to say what sometimes needs to be said. Today I stand in a queue (and no, no one makes way for me on account of my added girth or is extra polite because I so obviously qualify for the title of "Aunty"), but if someone dares to get ahead of me out of turn, or if they litter where they shouldn't, I make my displeasure known, while earlier I'd just shrug it off and not dare to be vocal.
I've only just started counting, but I'm sure there'll be more good things as the years pass - so while I don't have my list of 10 things to do before I'm 55 or a hundred things to do before I die, just enjoying each of these little compensations is an endless treat!
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
