Oldness Comes With A Smile

How do you know when you're old, properly old? Perhaps when you can no longer read the menu because you brought the wrong glasses? Or when you're hoping the deafness in your left ear is just a remnant of the Covid that didn't kill you and not the beginnings of permanent decline into silence, which you secretly crave. Photos of you feature tangerine-peel skin, and a forehead like an elephant's knee, lightless ruts carved into it like an aerial photo of the Peak District. Eyebrows turn savage and sharp, and earlobes are dusted with fine white hair like a mouse's back. Distension and sagging are just things that happen now, as you grow lower and slower, seized up. You're a forgotten Tin Man in a thick silent forest. 

Putting on a jacket or socks is a risky endeavour - cold, brittle bones crack like kindling. Yawning pops in your ears, and sets your jaws squeaking. Air-drumming is now a no no, though it probably should be at your time of life. You're spending more on your teeth than you would on a Dacia Duster. 

Things you've been doing all your life: singing, dancing, talking to women, holding court in the pub, well they're now sinister, troubling, boring or, worse, laughable. The same well-practiced and precise dance step that got you plaudits and admiring glances as a long-lashed skinny teen, has transformed to the sort of Dad Dancing that pads out Christmas episodes of "You've Been Framed". Your passion for music has become "gate-keeping" and your opinions are suspect or irrelevant. The blank edifice of modern culture sends you scuttling back to the grimy certainties of the 20th Century. It's why you're listening to Throwing Muse's "The Fat Skier" instead of "Escapism (feat. 070 Shake)" by Raye, you coward. It's why David Bowie dead is younger than you are right now. 

It's none of those things, though. 

It's when three of your concerned friends e-mail you separately that there's ice on the pavement where you live and to "be careful". 

And you heed their warnings. I nearly didn't leave the house yesterday because I was worried about falling over and breaking one of my biscuit bones.  

That's the time.