There is no better time to strike out than at this age when one has a pension, a house, and is no longer responsible for young children or ageing parentsAviva's life assurance algorithm informs me I will reach the age of 93, which means I am now 33 years from death. This seems like a minor eternity, equal in length to the portion of life I lived between 27 and now.I HAVE a friend who is a fellow teacher at my school.
Otherwise, life is everything it ought not to be. I am at the bottom of the career ladder, starting again professionally and, as it happens, romantically. Life is neither slow nor predictable. Instead of measuring our age by how many years we have lived already, she suggests that we think in terms of how many we have left. This sounds banal but the shift in perspective is oddly profound.
The next 33 years will not contain any more children and may or may not contain a proper relationship, but they do leave room for another, extended, interesting career. A better description would be Aged Adolescent: the recent appearance of liver spots on my hands reminds me that I'm aged, while my desire to push the boundaries of what it means to be my age was something I last did in a big way when I was 14. The only difference is that the risks that I'm now taking are not especially risky.If I compare myself to my young friend, she is risking a lot with her career. She is at the beginning and has everything to prove - to herself and to others.
For the first time in my working life, I am only motivated by the job itself. I desperately want my students to love what I'm teaching, and I want to learn how to get better at my job. That's it. But never mind the outward signs, I'm happier about my appearance than I was in my 20s. My body may have sagged, but my expectations have sagged even more. I look at myself in the mirror with tolerance, and think: you look fine - for 60.
I'm refusing to let that dent my optimism. I am still in a better position than my 25-year-old friend because I'm not trying to meet a man to have children with, who will stay by my side for the next half a century.
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