Getting old.

Subject: Getting old.

The implicit advantage of growing old on a desert island must be that you do the ageing bit in isolation, far from the prying eyes of those who would have an opinion.
Getting old is never a reassuring sight especially for ones children who have from their early years seen you as some sort of pillar, some sort of surety and strength to rely on. Now as the physical strength clearly dwindles and in their eyes we become not only doddery but also that dreaded thing, a liability, something to worry about in their busy lives. The world has turned full circle, then we fretted for their safety, now they fret for ours.

Our mind usually races ahead of the body searching endeavors which the sluggish body is loathe to venture, especially so when we get old. The mind, as fresh as a daisy doesn't pause to think that the old braggart, the body is struggling to keep up, not only keep up but even start out on the journey. As the knee or ankle joint begins to give a twinge of pain, making us hobble around a bit and start to look like that old person we used to see in the street, the concept shifts. The self image of old age is not attractive. We don't visualise that the person who walks slowly down the stairs or limps between the supermarket isles was once someone's dance partner or belonged to a team kicking a football around but now struggles to use  the TV control. 

The mind is continually at play, skipping reality and professing amazement that others don't understand our own self image, of what is real to us. Oldies can still drive a car and make their way to appointments, they can still engage  in everyone's idea of what the world is but somehow there is an intolerance of the older person wishing to be even there. They yearn for the oldie to be safe and sound in bed, secure from any imagined crisis, tucked away like a museum piece, with a fragile sign, 'don't disturb'  on the end of the bed,
Our struggle is to make everyone realise that the stereotype of old age varies from person to person. In some, whilst the bones ache, it's only an inconvenience, not a reason to close us down, to rather assume they can, do than can't, to ignore the gait,  not close the gate, to know that the intention as always is to be in the present  not the past.