I put my hand on the altar rail. ‘What if … what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you’re dying of thirst, or when someone’s nice to you for no reason, or …’ Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, ‘Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite’ … ’S’pose Heaven’s not like a painting that’s just hanging there for ever, but more like … Like the best song anyone ever wrote, but a song you only catch in snatches, while you’re alive, from passing cars, or … upstairs windows when you’re lost …”
― David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks (Random House; September 2, 2014)
…Sit your old bones down, because I’ve got bad news: you probably look older than you think you do. Don’t shoot the messenger – blame science. A recent study published in the journal Psychology and Aging found that 59% of US adults aged 50 to 80 believe they look younger than other people their age. Women and people with higher incomes were slightly more likely to say they thought they looked fresher than their peers; and only 6% of adults in the bracket thought (or realised) they looked older than others their age. In short, most of us are delusional.
While the survey only included people over 50, I reckon they would have got the same results if they polled anyone over 30. Our brains have inbuilt denial mechanisms that stop us confronting our own mortality. Many people’s biological age tends to differ from their “subjective age” (or how old they feel). Mine certainly does: according to my passport I’m 40, but in my head I’m still a sprightly 29.
I’m not totally deranged. I regularly have moments where I am reminded of my passing years. Eating in a restaurant tends to be one of them. Have restaurants become louder recently? Or have I just got more intolerant of noise? Either way, I’m pretty sure I didn’t grumble about decibel levels in my 20s.
My skinny jeans (which you will have to pry off my geriatric-millennial pins before I wear barrel-leg trousers) are also a perennial reminder that I am tragically over the hill in the eyes of gen Z. Then, of course, there are the newfangled random aches and pains – and the fact that I can now get a three-day-long crick in the neck simply from turning my head too fast.
Aches, pains and fashion faux pas aside, however, nothing makes me feel older than other people my age. I’m not talking about people I see regularly – you don’t really notice how they’ve matured. I’m talking about having an acquaintance from school or university pop up on social media and realising, with horror, that the fresh-faced teenager you remember is now an ancient-looking adult. “Surely, I don’t look that old?” I mutter to myself on those occasions. “Surely the ravages of time haven’t been so cruel to me?” Then I study myself in the mirror and realise, oh dear, they have.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m not saying getting older – or looking older – is terrible. Far from it: ageing has many perks. I used to be terribly self-conscious and, in my 20s, I would rarely leave the house without makeup. Now, I no longer have any proverbial ducks to give, and run errands looking like a scarecrow. I wear makeup so rarely that, when I do, my dog becomes instantly alarmed because he knows something weird is up. It’s liberating to no longer care what people think…
Internalised ageism doesn’t just harm your wallet and confidence; it can hugely affect your health. Indeed, a study from 2002 found that people with more positive self-perceptions of ageing lived 7.5 years longer than others. Embrace your subjective age, in other words. There’s a lot of truth to the cliche that you’re only as old as you feel.
Susan Photo of Wally and me. Didn’t fit at all with this passage except for my receding hairline, my gray hair, my “paunch” covered by Wally’s private parts, my face wrinkles, the deep bags under my eyes, and the seat cushion that is doing its best to reduce chronic lower back pain (and other unmentionables). Outside of all THAT, I feel less than half my age.
Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
A clear blue sky was hard to take. Marek saw it as emptiness, a place with no heaven in it. He preferred the clouds because he could imagine paradise behind them. He could stare up and focus his eyes on shapes in the clouds, wonder if that was God’s face or God’s hand making an impression, or if God was spying down at him through the gauzy mist. Maybe, maybe.
And the beat of those wings, thrumming inside of me.
“…a sound could be a color”
I’m frozen, eyes locked on the wings…Get the damn camera up Man, get it up!
“…and that heaven could be…this moment…”
Now!
You’re going to remember this…
Notes:
Photo: DK @ Cove Island Park, 5:42 a.m. May 12, 2022. More photos from this morning here.
Quote: “I hadn’t known that a light could be a feeling and a sound could be a color and a kiss could be both a question and an answer. And that heaven could be the ocean or a person or this moment or something else entirely.” — Megan Miranda, Fracture. (Walker Childrens; January 17, 2012)
Photo: DK, Cove Island Park, May 6, 2022 @ Twilight. 5:19 am. More photos from that morning here.
Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
