I’m sixty tomorrow and I don’t want to be.
I never wanted to be thirty, forty or fifty either. Twenty was OK, it was like a rite of passage along with the first car, the first serious girlfriend and getting laid for the first time.
Sixty is different though, it was easy to pretend you were young when you were statistically middle-aged but there’s only one word for sixty and its OLD.
Still there’s nothing that can be done about it, it will come tomorrow whether I like it or not. It can’t be hidden from or diverted to another person; tomorrow it’s all mine.
I’ve lived through what was probably the greatest period of change in the history of mankind. The Renaissance was a hiccup compared to the last sixty years. I just missed World War Two, which shaped and molded my father and his destiny, but was fully alert and looking around for the second half of the Twentieth Century. I grew up under the constant threat of nuclear dismemberment but we rarely thought about it. I could walk to school, (later I rode in a school bus that was a dangerous museum piece even back then), stay out all day and half the night without any one realizing I wasn’t there, eat as much fried food as I liked and Coca Cola and bought ice cream was a treat.
Later I left school and people sought to employ me. It wasn’t only me they sought to employ, it was anybody. There were jobs for anyone who wanted to work, and strange as it may seem these days, everybody did. There was no alternative. You left school, got a job and worked until you were given a gold watch and sent home the day you turned sixty five. People who change jobs too often were considered shiftless and unreliable.
I’m sixty tomorrow and I haven’t done a days real work for twelve years.
That was it, retired at forty eight.
Mind you I’ve done plenty of work, some of it was quite lucrative, but it wasn’t a real job.
Personally I’ve always had my doubts about working. If it hadn’t been the only option available to me to make money I’d have probably avoided it.
My father was different, he loved work. A child of the depression, his father died when he was young… a late victim of the “War to end all Wars” , and he received little formal education. This never stopped him reaching senior management level before he retired; and not only that, he worked when he didn’t have to. He loved community service. War veterans organizations, local government, voluntary magistrates, widows and orphans of servicemen, sporting bodies, fundraisers for charities like the Miss Australia quest, his political party of choice…. And he didn’t only join them, he ran them.
I was always a reluctant conscript in that type of thing. I wasn’t lazy, there were always other things I’d rather be doing.
A lot of them solitary.
Not that I’m anti-social, far from it, I have that many friends I’m reluctant to consider new ones. I’ve reached a point where I already know enough, if not too many, people.
This enjoyment of a little solitude has created problems in my relationships with the opposite sex. Few of the women I knew enjoyed being on their own and were deeply suspicious of anyone who did.
Strangely enough my current partner, who is a member of one of the most sociable races on the planet, seems to understand my habit of disappearing into one of the spare bedrooms with a book, or wandering off with the dog far better than my more sophisticated former companions. The thought that she may not care occasionally crosses my mind.
When I sum up my life one of the conclusions I draw is that I’ve been selfish. Wasteful is a term that comes to mind and failure sneaks in there on bad days as well. Failed husband, failed father, several jobs failed at because I couldn’t be bothered rather than lack of ability. Even failed patriot, my country is far behind me now.
I’ve lost count of the people I’ve disappointed without even meaning to do it.
I’ve got to the point where there are very few questions I still want answers to. I’ve worked out why people damage each other, either personally or en masse in war. I know what really matters in life and what doesn’t.
I’m not going to share these insights with you as it’s not the point of this essay.
But.
Why is the rice cooker never turned off?
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