Failing Fast

Getting old sucks. Not that I’m old-old, only forty-three, only half way through my life with any luck. But things are definitely on a downward slide. For instance, I now take three different types of medication every day (and that will only grow with time…I’m going to rattle…). When I was young, I only needed the odd paracetamol and I certainly didn’t have to worry about remembering to pack the fifteen drugs I need when going on holiday (three, I’m prone to exaggeration).

Then there’s my eyesight. I used to LONG to wear glasses as I child; glasses made people look intelligent, sophisticated. But now those spectacles that were only required for driving are now worn 50% of the day. Without them faces are just a blur and I’m probably waving at complete strangers in the street. The optician tells me I’ll need to wear them all the time when I’m fifty. And I hate them, I resent them, they’re an imposition. That stupid lump of plastic glued to my face. And I don’t look smart, I just look old. There will come a day when I’ll have to buy audio-books to continue my hobby of reading voraciously. That terrifies me. I want to invent the sound and the cadence and the resonance of the character’s voices in my head. I don’t want to hear some paid actor to voice them.

I read once that ageing was akin to to a picture being photocopied. And then a photocopy being taken of the photocopy. Over time that photocopy gets more blurred and distorted from the original picture. Well, that’s me. Slowly distorting over time. Oh crap…

I guess it happens to us all and I should count myself lucky that I could have a good forty years ahead of me, but the realisation that time WILL run out has dawned on me. I’ll grow old, my limbs, my organs- they’ll all start to fail. Oh my God, we’re all going to die!!!!! Anyway, that’s cheered me right up, I trust it has you too? I’m off to buy some cement-like, industrial strength foundation to fill these cracks in my face.