A rather depressing article in today´ s (20th November) Svenska Dagbladet where three Swedish female celebrities lament getting old. The women are not only struggling with their mirror images brutally reminding them of their journey through life but also with a diminishing sense of importance, based on eye catching good looks claiming presence in any room withering away. Their story is sad enough for me to refrain from twisting any knives in that wound, with the wound in itself being more than growing old and dying.
No life without death as the saying goes although when learning about the birds and bees at school, the latter is conveniently played down. As time goes by the phrase becomes less abstract with more focus on the rather more inconvenient part of living which for most of us is a grudgingly accepted price to pay.
What seems to be less accepted is the view that life is a journey with no cherry picking to be had. Rich or poor we experience much the same discomfort albeit in varying degrees of comfort.
Greying hair, wrinkles, weakening muscles, weakening eyesight, weakening hearing, breasts or scrotums surrendering to gravity are all part and parcel of our lives and for the sake of our mental health need to be acknowleged and dealt with as such.
No easy matter but to stress my point I feel there is an argument for being as unashamedly incontinent in old age as in infancy.
The side effects of growing old may be taken as preparatory although I no longer need these symptoms as hints of when and what is to come as arithmetic in conjunction with statistics complemented by various health warnings attributed to a number of my habits are sufficient.
I too glance in the mirror at times and I see me….. and it´ s looking good.