Your only 20.

I'm fed up. They keep on saying "your only 20 years old"!!

 Perhaps I could invoke age discrimination or some sort of harassment or claim mental abuse.

I'm talking of the Olympics which I watch, as I did 4 years ago, 8 years ago, 40 years ago with the same eyes but a diminishing body. In my mind I am one of them, I feel their pain in defeat and their joy in winning, I gulp as the anthem is played but slowly the realisation that "they" are on another planet, they belong to a different race, a race of people who "still have time to spare".  

To compartmentalise our lives seems no more evident than when watching young people do the things they do in a sporting event. Realising that even running for the bus has become an issue, puts the differential into perspective. The 'them and us' is never more clearly illustrated.

Where did all those years go as I see these magnificent specimens of youth climb onto the winning rostrum. Where and when did the slow disintegration start of the person I know as myself. Dealing with my peers in their suits or walking in the supermarket, one is not particularly aware of the differences between us. Our clothing hides a lot and we are not in competition to have to notice each other. We pace ourselves and feel proud at our current achievements, enjoying the leisurely walk and the mild sense of still being able to get around and do what ever we want to. Of course it's all relative. Our world has shrunk to accommodate what we can do. We are on the back foot in expecting too much improvement and rather seek the lesser goal of holding our own against "Father Time". The drives which used to make up much of our mental process are now damped down, aglow, still alight, but only just.
Seeing these fit, energetic, optimistic people looking wide eyed into the future, 'their future', one has to draw breath at the turn around in ones own esprit, ones own life.

One of the rewarding things is the sound of so many Northern voices during the interviews, lads and lasses who know the environment I grew up in, who are made of the same stuff, abet much more highly tuned but the emotional landscape which makes the North so different to the South is there in spades.