Why I'm looking forward to being old

Free money, free travel, less vanity, more confidence... surely it's not all bad?

Flat shoes FTW. Photo by Matt Bennett on Unsplash.

I like the thought of growing old. No, honestly, it sounds brilliant. Loads of my best friends are old - Grandad, who is 73, and my friend David (sorry David, I’m sure you don’t see yourself as old, but you have a Freedom Pass), and a female friend who shall remain nameless as she doesn’t want people to know she’s old.

And look, I’m not one of those 40-somethings who thinks they’re old already. The comedy circuit is full of them - loads are in their 20s and 30s and start all their jokes with, ‘You know you’re getting old when…’, and you genuinely want to throw squishy tomatoes at the young bastards.

No: I’m turning 44 on 3rd July, in case you want to get me a present, like a mug saying ‘You’re So Ancient’ which I will then regift to Grandad. I am no spring chicken, but at most I am a summer duck. In my late 50s I will be an autumn pheasant, and 20 years later, a… winter turkey?

You’re probably like, ‘Are you insane, Sherine? You want an increase in health problems, lack of mobility, friends dying, your imminent death just around the corner…?!’

Not those things, specifically. But I don’t fear ageing - quite the reverse. I’m not saying I want to be old right now, in case you have some kind of magic button you can press. But I think it’s going to be great if and when I get there - and here’s why.

You don’t give a fuck anymore

This old man looks downright naughty. Photo by Artyom Kabajev on Unsplash.

Grandad is constantly saying dodgy things, and when I tell him off, he says, ‘I don’t care, I’m old.’ When I wrote my Substack piece about him two weeks ago, I ran it by him beforehand, and he said, ‘I’d never object to anything’. He’s not concerned about his reputation or legacy - he doesn’t even want a funeral!

And it’s not just Grandad: it’s the old lady on the bus who took umbrage to me sitting in the priority seat when I was pregnant, snapping, ‘Just because you’re pregnant, it doesn’t mean you’re incapable!’. It’s Bernard, aged 86, who drove me home from our writers’ circle when I was 19, did a ‘sexy growl’ and put his hand on my knee (which is the very definition of optimism). It’s another old lady who deliberately bashed into me with her shopping trolley.

I’m not saying all older people don’t care about others. I’m just saying a lot of them have given up on social niceties in favour of doing exactly what they want. After all, if not now, then when? They’re more confident and sure of themselves, and they don’t care who they piss off.

In contrast, I spent the entire decade of my twenties worried that I’d offended, hurt or insulted other people accidentally, mainly when I’d had a few at parties. That’s partly why I stopped drinking, because I hated the idea that I couldn’t remember causing upset. I would torture myself for the whole day after the party, cursing, ‘Why did I say that?!’

I don’t do this anymore, but I do like the idea of being less worried what people think. And maybe bashing my shopping trolley into a few people I don’t like the look of.