 |
| Jimbaran © PJ Croft 2012 |
The other day I came across a web item which listed the things you might be noticing that mark you as ‘grown up’. Going by my memory, they were things like:
- having a mortgage
- owning your car
- having a kid or kids
- washing the dishes straight after dinner
- mowing the lawn when it needs it
- having a good credit rating
- being in your job more than three years
- cleaning your own gutters
- planning your next overseas trip
and so on and on, more than 50 items. From this distance, yawn, bit juvenile, forgotten most of those.
Today I was thinking about what it means to be our age – um, greying, shall we say?
- seeing a scene like the pic above and remembering it before it got ‘developed’
- having a reverse mortgage – getting some of your investment back
- SKI-ing (Spending the Kids’ Inheritance)
- having a station wagon and a sports car
- restoring a Harley Davidson or MGB
- going to Paris for the girlfriends’ birthday party
- knowing, without saying, ‘been there, done that’
- having a store of stories and experiences for every occasion
- paying a younger guy to mow your lawn
- living in an apartment which doesn’t have gutters
- feeling the satisfaction of knowing you screwed your company when they retired you
- playing with your grandkids but not having to look after them
- getting up in the morning when you feel like it
- getting your taxes back from the government in welfare
- flashing your Seniors’ card and getting free transport
- seeing a Google reference to somewhere like Kitsap and thinking, Yeah, I’ve been there
- being referred to as Sir or Ma’m
- not caring if your clothes are out of date
- flashing your Gold card for road service or discounts
- having a young woman offer to carry your bag up the steps of the aircraft
- having your suitcase carried down the big stairs by a young guy (both these have happened for me)
- knowing you don’t need to save for a rainy day, you’ve already done it, this is the rainy day
- building, or even completing, your collection of whatever it is
- getting around to reading the great books or seeing the great films
- understanding what classical music or jazz is really about
- making that trip to a historic site
- being able to afford to stay in a decent hotel
- being out of the office politics
- lashing out on a nice souvenir or just something nice for yourself
- seeing a picture of some exotic place and knowing, yeah, I know that street or view
- having a feeling of self confidence when ordering in a restaurant, having dined in Paris or London
- not having to be somewhere, at some meeting, having worried all night about it.
This list can go on and on too. I’m just getting started.
In other words, getting older has its compensations, quite a lot.
Bull's Roar 