Jo May

Milestones and Millstones

I recently turned 65 and as a consequence was bundled from Late Middle Age to Late Adulthood.

So says an AI-generated assessment of the stages of human development. AI averaged out available information and came up with 65 as the tipping point. Yes, Artificial Intelligence is wholly to blame for my senior predicament. I did find a more forgiving opinion stating that Late Adulthood doesn't start till 80. But, however you categorize it, I am in a 'category' - and I've decided to investigate.

Late Middle Age to Late Adulthood is but a temporal millisecond but a physical step so huge, one is liable to turn an ankle plunging towards the abyss. Psychologically it's not easy either. My state of mind is the reason for a delayed commentary on my age-related predicament. From mid-life strife towards the old duffers buffers.

In addition, I couldn't find my spectacles, which is becoming increasingly frequent. But, a silver lining; the search for my glasses allowed me time to listen to a self-help guru on my personal hi fi. I found his words of wisdom on a CD buried in the budget basket at a motorway service station. For younger readers a CD is a Compact Disc, which is a digital version of a vinyl LP which is a round plastic thing you played via a stylus on a turntable.......... turntable? I'll stop there. My guru is a chap who sounds so knackered he makes everybody else feel better. Quite a USP I think you'll agree. The sound quality is sketchy because there are clattering noises in the background, overlaid with asthmatic huffing and puffing. It sounds like he's rushed the recording because he's in theatre waiting for the imminent start of his life-saving operation. I'm listening via those little hearing aid things you stick in your ears. 'Incompetence pods'my mate rather unkindly calls them. He's older than me so he's allowed to scoff.

Let's have a brief assessment of my predicament and consider whether I'm likely to be around to watch the next series of Reacher.

I bypassed most of my adulthood due to a belligerent rejection of life’s accepted protocols.

This philosophy may be the reason I've got this far. After all, old age is like everything else, to make a success out of it you have to start young.

The fact is, for 65 years I remained a child and managed to ignore growing up - until now. Have I been imprudent? According to protocol, probably. Had I followed the accepted path, I would have moved through gears of human development with a seamless dip of life's clutch. According to one text-book psychologist, each stage is marked by distinct physical, cognitive, and socioemotional changes (which to me sounds like an alphabet soup of obfuscation). It's growing up by numbers, which I didn't - hitherto, I've lived my life ignorant of both categories and stages. Being ignorant of where we are in life is only a problem if we encounter a problem. At that point, we can either turn to a text book and alphabet soup our way out of the crisis, or do what I did - make a series of drastic course changes en route, leaving the text book smouldering in the embers of a garden bonfire. When a crisis arrived, I hoisted the sail and waited for the wind to blow me somewhere new.

It seems like the blink of the eye since I was skipping through the Infant and Toddlerhood stage. The worst bit, let me tell you, is that Late Adulthood(according to AI) is considered the lastofficial lifespan stage! I investigate and wish I hadn’t because I read with resigned foreboding; ‘there is no distinct developmental stage that comes afterlate adulthood; the only thing that follows is death and the process of dying’. Who the hell writes something like that? Tactful Terence on the graveyard shift? It’s like saying, ‘yes, go on, cross the road, that bus will probably swerve round you.' The death statement is one that can only have been written by a youthful git with many years left to live – unless I get hold of the bugger first. I wonder if this young git is any relation to tempus fu-git.

My chief misgiving about being bundled into a box called Late Adulthood is the word ‘late’. Looming large is my future in another box, this one luxuriating within the hushed splendour of a large black motor car on my final, dismal journey. If I'm lucky I'll be followed by a few relatives in a suitably short cortege. Like a procession of silent black ducklings following mother.

I liken my worldly progress to a huge Saturn V rocket, the first of which first blasted into space just seven years after my birth, the same year that saw the release of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. The rocket's two booster stages that powered my youth, were discarded long ago and tumbled back to earth, fuel spent. That left me, the pointy bit on top, hurtling through time and space, towards distant dreams.

If that all sounds a bit forlorn, don't worry, it’ll all be alright…. I just need to get my head round things. The point is that whatever we do, however we influence the world, time is a constant and we can't do anything about it. Hopefully along the way we'll have some fun, but there will inevitably be sadness - like when the off license unexpectedly shuts early. We'll have triumphs, however limited, offset by cock-ups. Whatever happens, we can't blame time, it's not time's fault we get wound up about it. Instead, we have to adjust our sails and tack our way diligently across life's ocean from womb to wooden overcoat.

To begin my rehabilitation, I decide I hate categories, particularly when they are generic and chillingly stark - Late Adulthoodfor example. The blow is softened when I realize that the credibility of a category must depend on who determined it in the first place. For example, a monstrous porker with angina would define a category differently to, say, Dick van Dyke, who is still grooving at 98 years of age. He entered Late Adulthood 33 years ago so there's scope for optimism. Here's a coincidence; about the same time Dick van Dyke (DvD for short) entered Late Adulthood, the DVD was invented. It might be the very one my self-help guru recorded his message on. I’ve seen eighty-year-old cyclists, lean and leathery, zooming round the country followed by that reassuring whiff of liniment; alternatively, fourteen-year-old children full of Pepsi and imitation food, so huge they can barely walk. 'Slowed to a standstill by fast food', there's a phrase to digest. Cyclist and youth would view Late Adulthood very differently. In fact, only one would likely get there.

Categories were invented so psychologists could postulate theories to allow them to react to what goes wrong. And profit by writing books about it. In other words, we humans have lived our lives and someone has postulated theories based on our cock-ups. That's like being smart with the benefit of hindsight - which is not smart at all. In fact, it's behavioural plagiarism. I propose that rather than categories we should have varying measures of physical or emotional state. That way we have some rationale over our rate of decay; commensurate for example, with how well, or not, we’ve looked after ourselves. We should ask a few basic questions, such as; how do I feel? Am I doing enough to look after myself? Can I bend over to tie my shoelaces without an expulsion of wind (or worse)? Do I drink too much? (mind your own business). Do I overeat and exercise too little? Does my brain get a work-out with puzzles or is it gradually decomposing in front of the TV, like a decaying lump of radioactive rock?

Subconsciously, I must have known that a moment of personal crisis was imminent because I’ve just completed two books that are senior-themed. Each, in its own way, pays homage to ‘maturity’. One is fiction, which is slightly easier to write because I can skate over the darker aspects of my character’s age-related idiosyncrasies. No need to mention unseemly dribbles or mountains of medication. I can turn an old codger into a dashing white sergeant and no-one’s the wiser. Ah, the joys of literary license. Pity I can’t write my own profile.

With non-fiction, I’m stuck with telling the truth, which is far more constraining. I am forced to be honest and, if we’re not careful, that’s liable to unearth all sorts of alarming goings-on.

Notwithstanding the creaks and groans, age is basically a state of mind. The trick is to make age more a milestone than a millstone. As I look back, I feel things are a bit skewed. For example, the marriage anniversary milestones are back to front. Year one should be Diamond, because that’s the time when everything, with a bit of luck, is fine and dandy. We should be at our peak individually and dually. Those first 365 idyllic days are a time when marital irritations are still securely tamed within delicate underwear. Yes, unless we’ve chosen a really duff partner, year one should be Diamond. Actually, in the accepted order of things Diamond (60 years) is not top of the tree because it’s followed by Platinum (70), then Oak, (80), Wine - yes indeed (85) and then Granite (90) - no, I didn’t know either! My wife and I can safely ignore those latter rewards because we’ve just struggled past 30, which is pearl. Now I’ve plunged into the dreaded cavern of ‘late adulthood’, well, let’s just say we can forget about granite. Ironically, Oak and Granite are the only ones locally abundant. I can walk on the moors and grab a lump of Granite to give to my beloved. There's also Oak lying about and that should be free - unless I'm caught hacking a limb off and get fined by Special Branch. Following this theory to it's logical (?) conclusion, the first anniversary gift, which is paper, will now be the last. Handy this, because it's here we'll write our Last Will and Testament to assign our worldly goods (and bads) to the black ducklings in our cortege.

So, the books? Which incidentally are numbers 13 and 14 in my portfolio. Portfolio sounds a bit presumptuous, 'in my shed', there, that's more my style. Whichever, we're getting up towards a million words I would think. I've put together a jumble of vaguely connected phrases that will remain for ever for people to ignore - long after my Late Adulthood phase has ground to a halt. Ground! Huh.

Operation Boomeris fiction and celebrates both age and the sporting ideal. It champions the older person’s desire to keep active and compete. The stage on which they perform I’ve called The Renaissance Games. A rebirth of ambition and purpose in latter years. The event is the brainchild of our band of doddery narrowboaters who live on a swamp in Shropshire – the same group who battled so purposefully during Operation Vegetable. People said nice things about our boaters first time round, so they’re back for another adventure. They’ve concocted a series of events designed for those of the ‘Boomer’ generation – aged 60 and above. No marathon or pole-vault, they would be too much for seniors, but among other things, are cycling, archery and bowls. And for the children, a Duckathlon where plastic ducks are chucked in a river to race downstream!

The Wider Rider at Largeis factual and contains more daft adventures of a chap who, at the time, was Late Middle-Aged. It’s book number six in my At Large Series - yes, Jan and I have done enough meandering to fill six volumes. We’ve progressed, with varying degrees of success and dignity, from narrowboats to a barge to bicycles and a campervan. This time, in Southern England we hunt fossils and adopt a donkey and a chimpanzee! Up in Scotland we don’t adopt anything but experience giant horses in the shape of the astonishing Kelpies. Then there’s the dreamland magic of Loch Katrine in The Trossachs National Park, a place of stunning beauty. I stopped so frequently to capture the magic on my camera that it took me an hour to cover the first mile on the bike. Next, for Jan, a spiritual centre in the middle of Edinburgh followed by a Buddhist retreat in the middle of nowhere. Scotland is wonderful. In fact, our whole island is fantastic – let’s hope we don’t bugger it up.

Throughout the book, the van, the bike and my wife all behaved admirably; me, less so.

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