All going to plan, as you read this, a much loved and younger friend will be lying by the pool having flown in from New York a few days earlier. The son will at some point arrive from the Cote d’Azur he much prefers to my bucolic boredom….. and me, in truth.
Delighted as I am to see them – well, Laura certainly – I hate that they’re here for a reason; an occasion I’d prefer not to acknowledge.
Yes, it’s almost my birthday. A major one they tell me. I am in denial. I have refused any party, any ‘treat’, any mention of the fact.
And I know, of course I know, having lost so many colleagues far too young, that every birthday is a privilege in itself. So, don’t berate me for what may follow. I am well aware.
I’ve written before about not revealing my age (although God knows it wouldn’t take a genius to work out from some of my columns.)
I have mainly done it for work purposes. Like an actress, once age is attached to the person, a lot of the gigs stop coming.
And don’t believe any of the merde that X is the new X. You can hone, tone, think youthful thoughts and do the downward dog to your heart’s content, but you’ll still be X, even with a facelift.
(Do you see what I’m doing here? Only writing X?)
Your arteries will still harden; your muscles waste; your neck take on the life of Margaret Rutherford’s; your skin pleat and fold in ripples heading ever downwards.
Memory deserts you and you stare at the inhaler steroids you take at 10.10pm precisely and can’t remember, at 11pm, if you actually did take them. So, you take them again and then panic and wait for an overdose heart attack.
Retelling old familiar, often funny stories, engenders terror mid-way through as you’ve suddenly remembered you’ve forgotten half the names involved and the bloody punchline.
You write a word and are no longer quite sure if that is the spelling or the meaning.
You, whose spelling and grammar were once near damn perfect, stare at it as if deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics.
So, you do the memory tests online in case…in case. When you pass, you pour a vin rouge in celebration. And then ponder if this is why your brain cells have perished. And have another one in fear.
And you fret and worry about illness and lack of appreciation from those you’ve reared and think evil thoughts. Less On Golden Pond more Toxic Cesspit.
You then wish you were kinder, nicer and had learnt to knit and cook – even crochet – and bake pies and had real grey hair than the one enormous one in your eyebrow.
Isn’t that what sweet old grannies do?
And talking of hair, you wonder with amazement how/why it’s transplanted from your body to your chin.
You wish you could just give up and wear a wrap-around pinny like the mamies hereabouts and be the centre of huge Sunday family lunches with a tumble of grandchildren at your feet and huge breasts falling uncaringly to your waist.
For that is real age, non? Non.
Inside this increasingly cracked-up shell is..me. Me. Vibrant; full of joy, all singing, all dancing and ready to party.
Me, still filled with wonder at the little discoveries I make daily in the flora and fauna around; me, desperate to take off at a minute’s notice; me, drooling over ridiculous shoes while stuffing my feet into safe trainers; me, who would be fine if I could just breathe like normal people.
The age always matters but not as much if you’re healthy and that’s the plain truth.
I’d disdain the wear and tear of life, while still hating them, and even the effects of gravity if I could just still be…me.
But then, inside, we never really change, do we, no matter what ravages our bodies? We still have that purity and hope fired into us at birth no matter what came after.
Still have all those moments when like young pups we pranced, played and lived in the second.
So, don’t look at our faces and weary bodies – look in our eyes for we still live there even when we’re snappy and irritable with all around us.
There is nothing around me but I’m still snappy and irritable. I blame the drugs.
As Indiana Jones said in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Marion said to him: "You’re not the man I knew ten years ago…"
"It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage."
Ain’t that the truth.
This weekend I’ll be taken out of myself and back to myself and I’m sure Laura et moi will dance around the kitchen table as Pierce puts his head in his hands.
And I’ll be me again…ageless.
How old Fidelma Cook? Old Fidelma Cook fine.
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