From Seventy

... moving towards old

I hadn’t expected it to have such a big impact on me. My seventieth birthday. It was unknown territory - I didn’t know what to expect. But the feelings of doom were gathering, in the mornings when I woke, the vague dread of something bad lying ahead. Tears were often close, and it felt like grief, like loss, but grief for what, loss of what? I was still alive, reasonably fit, had no worrying ailments, and just needed to lose at least a stone, but I knew I could do it.

There was an enormous sense of disbelief. I simply couldn’t take in that it was I, Julie, who would shortly be seventy years old. I wonder if anyone can ever actually absorb the truth of their age, once they move over to the second half of life. And particularly once they are within sight of their end.

I remember some time in my early forties, looking at myself in a mirror and suddenly realising that that face would never look any fresher or younger, no matter how many early nights or facials I had. And then, about ten years later, during a particularly glorious autumn, it came upon me, in a car park in Ilkley, that there would only be so many autumns that I would see.

And now, coming up to seventy, I truly saw, for the first time, that my life is finite. Yes, we all know that - we don’t need to be seventy to know that life on earth is not everlasting. But to truly know it, within, to grasp the inescapable reality, not just that human lives do not go on forever, but that my own particular life will end. That’s a scary shift. Well, it is for me.

I wondered how people with faith experience this awakening. I played around with pretending I believed in life after death in the traditional Christian sense. That there is everlasting life, that death is not the end, and that we will meet again those we have known and loved during our lives. I could feel the ease and relief of that. A very effective way to avoid facing death as the end of it all. I imagine that it takes the edge off it.

I had coffee with Aileen, a new friend, today. She’s a little ahead of me. It’s different, she said, getting to seventy. It’s not just a number. In your sixties, you’re still really in late middle age. From seventy, you’re old.

I prefer to see it as early old age. I’m not ninety, after all. But it’s not like the turning of any other decade I’ve known.

I know lots of women who are over seventy. They’ve stepped across the threshold. I’m curious. I want to know if they felt like I do now. Maybe they felt just thankful to be alive. Maybe they fell into despair. Maybe they were suddenly catapulted into- oh, you know, all those ‘bucket list’ activities. Machu Picchu and so on.

When ageing really begins to bite, none of that ‘age is just a number’ stuff works then. And I’m in it. It’s like being a traveller in a new land. So this is what it’s like, this foreign country. I lived in Spain for almost ten years, and when I came back to the UK, a couple of years ago, I could then see the whole sweep of my time living abroad in a way it had been impossible to do while I was away. `

And now, at this solstice pause, where my life momentarily stills before heading towards the dying of the light, I can see the sweep of my life up to now. Up to this momentous turning point. I can see the child, the young girl, the young woman. See her beauty and vigour. Her curiosity and sense of adventure. Can remember her innocence and ignorance of the world. And so, on through the years. It feels almost like reaching a mountain peak and being amazed that I’ve been capable of the achievement.

Have I really done this? I?

I wonder who and what I’ll become? Will I become a twinkly-eyed old lady, smelling of Johnson’s Baby Powder and wearing too much jewellery? Will people come to visit me, or avoid me because I repeat things and get cross if they mention it? Will I start wearing long sleeves to cover the suddenly wrinkled skin on my forearms? Will I develop the strength and dedication to do daily workouts and finally manage to avoid wheat and dairy foods, and get to bed early?

Will the countdown bring calm, or panic?

It’s going to be very interesting. An awfully big adventure.