How does it feel to be 60?

Not all that different from 50,or for that matter 30. Very different from 20 though,thankfully.

When I turned 30 Dad wrote saying the best of life was over,I’d passed peak and it would all be downhill from now on. Thanks Dad. I think he must have been fairly depressed when he wrote that.

Also it’s not true. Yes I’d never again run ten miles in under 55 mins,but so what. The best and most enjoyable mountaineering and rock climbing was still to come. I did my hardest climbs when I was about 40.

I married Jenny at 34,and that was a major change for the better. Thank you Jenny. I became more sociable,less introvert.

When I turned 50 my sister (six years my elder and better –I’m still her baby brother ) wrote in her card “I can’t believe you’re 50!”. Four years later I considered writing “I can’t believe you’re 60!”in hers but chickened out. Mind you at 50 I felt worn out. Teaching was becoming very stressful and tiring,though it remained the right job. For five years after that I became increasingly ill,frequently feeling like I was going down with flu. At 55 teaching had to stop. Teaching with chronic depression had become impossible. It took years to recover,but life was new.

We love being grandparents

At 60 there are fresh challenges. They have to match a body which weighs more and is weaker. They have to fit round a mind that gets tired more easily. That’s life. But overall I’m more content now than ever before.

When I was 20 there were other problems. I was still in full time education and had little money and no home of my own. I was insular and difficult to get along with. Like Mark Twain at the same age I thought I knew everything when in fact I knew very little. Again,that’s life. We move through. Stuff changes. Some things become less convenient,but other things improve. I’m very glad I don’t have to go through all that adolescent stuff again. Maybe one day,like my mother before me,I’ll end up in a nursing home wondering where my teeth are and forgetting the names of my grandchildren. That was a sad time for us,but we loved her very much. Also she was much happier in the home than in sheltered accomodation because there were people around all the time. She lived to her early 90s. We still do love her.

Yeh,it feels good to be 60.

Share on Facebook