The reckoning
Okay, this morning I’m coming out of the woods with my hands up.
For the first time in my life I’m actually admitting I’m old.
It’s taken me quite a while to get to this position for all the obvious reasons, including the fact that every individual in every species on Earth gets up every morning to go about their business – never mind what might happen to anyone else – steeped in the absurd but stirring assumption that they personally are immortal.
At least unless and until proved wrong.
In my mind’s eye – no doubt like not a few Rusters – I’ve mentally imagined myself to be permanently stuck at the age of 31 … well okay, 39 … ever since I was 39 (which is jolly nearly thirty years ago now).
And yet.
Take the last few days.
By chance my occasional glances at the newspapers have informed me that (never mind Her Majesty The Queen, 94, who doesn’t count) this week Iggy Pop has turned 73, Angela Mortimer (as was, now Barrett) – 1961 Wimbledon ladies singles champion – 88, Lloyd Honeyghan 60, Jack Nicholson 83, Jonathan Trott 39 and Jancis Robinson 70.
Most tellingly of all, going back inevitably to my teenage years of the 1960s, two of my all time female crushes are getting on a bit.
The first, a life-sized iconic image of which – coming out of the sea onto a Caribbean island beach in a white bikini with a knife, scabbard and conch shell – still adorns my spare bedroom mantlepiece … is the actress Ursula Andress who made her legendary debut in the Bond movie Dr No (1962).
The second is, inevitably, the legendary Italian goddess Sophia Loren.
The pair [I had to look this up on the internet a few seconds ago] are now aged … wait for it … respectively 84 and 85!
Which, of course, is totally impossible.
Another watershed incident yesterday has partly contributed to me “manning up” today.
What, exactly?
Well, having originally advised that everyone over the age of 70 should ideally self-isolate because of their statistical “excessively vulnerable” state in the context of the coronavirus crisis (partly supported by the fact that the average longevity of UK citizens of both genders these days is 80.9 years), the Government came out swinging in the media yesterday with the further recommendation – backed by World Health Organisation dictat – that the 7.5 million Brits aged between 60 and 69 should also be locked away for their own good because of the considerable risk they now face.
Apparently a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has reported that 85% of all deaths from Covid-19 (or coronavirus) across all countries are in people over the age of 65.
In one sense this ‘crossing of the Rubicon’ is a slight relief.
For years, half in jest, my kids have been telling me to get myself tested for dementia and (to be honest) I’ve noticed that my occasional forgetfulness over the last couple of years has increased a tad.
Yesterday I set off for my routine afternoon exercise having left my Garmin fitness wristband on charge, which meant that I missed out on adding at least 16,000 steps to my daily self-chosen target – and that’s without counting the two occasions so far this week I’ve failed to take my house keys with me when nipping across the road at 6.50am to collect my newspapers!
The retirement home sector beckons …