Growing old with Grace

Embracing growing old with grace


THERE are a few unwritten rules and guidelines that should generally be adhered to if one wishes to grow old gracefully. This is not to suggest that yours truly is the perfect example of pension-hood, but even if my actions sometimes fall below the required gold standard, my intentions are usually well-meaning.
Some of today’s mid-life crises would make the ancestral equivalent of 50 years ago seem like a mild mood swing. Where once a new haircut and a pungent aftershave constituted a mid-forties freak out, now it’s a brand new sports car, a divorce, a twenty-something sex partner and a face lift. And that’s just the men.
Bad bleach jobs have also become par for course among senior business executives who, desperate to adjust their physical appearance to match their growing immaturity, would think nothing of emptying the entire contents of a bottle of black hair dye over themselves and rocking into work the following day with a head like a bats nest.
It is happening all the time. Last year, true as god, a well-known balding broadcaster arrived into work one morning with a brand new set of hair plugs dotted incoherently across his head.
One minute the guy is clinging on to the last few remaining grey tufts above his neck and the next he turns up looking like a squirrel fell asleep on his head. And the best part was he acted like nothing had changed! Not so much as a passing mention.
Women are just as bad. Last weekend, on the same day that Hilary Clinton announced her intention to run for the office of President of the United States of America, Madonna was busy shoving her 56 year-old tongue down a young man’s throat.
For anyone that missed Madonna’s latest embarrassment, it was a bit like watching old Aunty Betty forcing herself onto the nephews best friend.
The man in question, young enough to be her grandson, looked visibly nauseous afterwards. Madonna, true to form, seemed completely impervious to her inappropriate behaviour. Denial is a wonderful mirror though, don’t you think?
Granted, Madonna is not exactly a modicum of dignity and grace in her advancing years. Sometimes it seems like the queen of pop would do anything to arrest the ageing process, including threading that ever so fine line between cougar dating and statutory rape.

Female ambition
Clinton, on the other hand, was quite remarkable in maintaining her composure throughout the epitome of the male mid-life crisis. The biggest problem for Hilary was that her husband just so happened to be the President of the United States of America when he was busy ‘not having sexual relations’ with an intern at the Oval Office.
Something about Hilary’s sticking power throughout the Lewinsky scandal is to be admired. Yet, at the same time, part of me was slightly bothered by it all.
Is Hilary the confident, intelligent, brave leader that she sets herself out to be? The type of trustworthy candidate that would make a fine president after the next election? Or is she the type of vulnerable, insecure person that puts up with a cheating husband just to pursue the dream of power?
If the latter is the case, there is something rather unsettling about it all. Hilary’s greatest obstacle is convincing Americans that she is fit for office because she is the best candidate running. Not because she is a woman.

Embracing old age
Back to growing old gracefully. One of the great advantages of old age is the realisation that wisdom is impossible for the inexperienced. The physical deterioration that comes with the ageing process can be offset, slightly, with the knowledge that there are thousands of life lessons in the memory bank.
This may be scant consolation for the frustrated 60 year-old sportsman trying to sustain previous prowess, but in general, wisdom has its rewards.
The secret to growing old gracefully is to embrace the ageing process and use the experience gained to compensate for other inconveniences. Battling against the tide is exhausting and pointless, so I find that the best way to welcome the advancing years is simply to go with the flow.
If the hair starts to thin, embrace the baldness. If the body tires more easily than it used to, rest up more frequently. And if the golf swing just ain’t what it was ten years ago, shift down a club.
A friend of mine always insisted that the innocence of youth is wasted on the young. But, as some of my earlier examples might suggest, in later life impeding the march of time innocently can be disconcerting and even a bit embarrassing.