IS AGE JUST A NUMBER?

Age is just a number. Have heard that million times even as my age raced ahead adding to the numbers with every passing day, month and year. I was almost thrown into the lull of the words of that powerful sentence, merrily ignoring the time that signalled me to slow down. I am young at heart and age is just a number. Or so I believed.

Little did I realise that my body however, was vigilant to the passing time. With each tick of the clock-hands, the cells of my body started their journey towards slowing down to a lesser speed than what they were used to for so many decades. Mind you, I was not exactly unaware but chose to ignore their apathy at not keeping up with me. My body too was very benevolently accepting my forced enthusiasm and energy to live life to the fullest.

 It never dulled my thought process or my ability to rush into the wind and get going. All I kept thinking was, am I really that old, is that really my age, was I really born in that long-gone decade?????? For age was just a number!

And then slowly and steadily creeped in the signs on feet of clouds, noiselessly breaking into the barrier I thought I had created, making their presence felt through the little and the big things. The alarm bells rung and the time machine smiled.

A sign here and a sign there.

An insignificant ‘cold’ that refused to go even when the proverbial week was up, gradually turning into an incessant cough that kept me awake at night and angry during the day. A ‘cold’ I had ignored and gotten over fast in the past as just a minor hiccough became a rowdy companion of weeks giving me sleepless nights and emptying my shallow pockets for antibiotics and a host of other medications that complicated this simpleton of a cold. You are getting old my dear, said someone older than me.

The annual blood reports that came back without a red mark all these years unexpectedly started coming back with a red line here and a red line there. My rank was threatened and the culprit was age. My penchant for all things sweet was driven rudely into the ground as the sugar levels shot up. I knew my inheritance, but not so soon or so I thought. There it was, the legacy of my father. The gift of high sugar had come home to roost and it was now time to move into the community of senior citizens, the men and women with hypertension, arthritis, cataract and diabetes.

The thick mane of brown hair I flaunted on my head was another of my inheritance. Envied by a lot of friends, I secretly felt proud that I had such thick and brown hair with a sparse sprinkling of grey that came home few years back. With utter disregard for the harm that age causes, I realised the assault of age when the clips started slipping off and the hair line got a prominence more than it deserved. I woke up to the reality that the signs were there to stay. Age had challenged the sheer vanity of my feminism.

The mirror is yet another story. Not that it was great before, but youth and middle age certainly blended smoothly to keep the face fresh and moderately okay. The two small worry lines on the forehead remained quiescent even in the face of extreme worry of career, parenting and building a life, belying the inner turmoil of the thirties to the fifties. As I looked into the mirror now, it occurred to me that the worry lines had given up on their ability to hide and now were fully evident making me look worried even as I tried to smile. There were some more lines gradually creeping over the cheek that had lost their strength and were slowly sagging down, fluttering the red flag. The dark circles under the eyes that never bothered me suddenly decided to make their presence felt and the crow feet got more feet than wings and firmly planted themselves around my eyes.

“Haven’t seen you around for some time?” said my regular grocer and I sheepishly smiled back, unable to tell her that every evening after I returned home from work, I slumped like a rag doll unable to bring myself to catching hold of all my shopping bags to buy things I hardly needed and while away precious time and money on my favorite store for things I didn’t need. It felt unreal at first. What had gone wrong, I thought. Shopping could not lure me out of my house was something unimaginable and unbelievable a few years back.

And now all I wanted was to stay indoors and prep myself for the next day. When Amazon gave me all that I needed for that dopamine rush at the click of a button, I was done. Weekends saw me saying a repetitive no to party invitations and outings, things I loved to do all these years. The friends, the laughter, wine and food that beckoned me, suddenly felt like a weight on the tired shoulders. I longed for quiet Saturday nights with candles, music, a glass of wine and my favorite companion by my side.

 Surprisingly, work was the only temptation that kept me waiting for the day to begin when I would happily throw myself into the hectic schedule only to return home slumped. The culprit was right there, engulfing me as I fought to surrender to its strength. Adrenaline and passion helped me see through the demands of work but the evenings were now just about a cup of coffee and feet resting on the table till it was time for dinner.

Food and me have been good acquaintances and a few decades ago I did enjoy street food or the ever so tempting fried delicacies. The red or yellow gravy interspersed with the white of the paneer or topped with the red chilly oil with the naan drenched in butter gave me weak knees.  The smell of tamarind and jaggery and the green mint chutney in crisp fried puris threw all my hygiene caution to the wind as I indulged in one blessed puri after other. The thumping sound of ladle on the huge pan as it smashed the boiled potatoes to make that delicacy called pav-bhaji pulled me with a magnetic force that was irresistible

But that soon became history. Slowly I realised that all the pull of smells and sights left me with heartburn and loss of sleep if I swallowed even a morsel of more than what my ageing stomach could tolerate. All the food I loved gradually became a part of the reels on Instagram that could only be devoured by the eye. And……. I knew age had creeped into my heart through my stomach.

It was also a gradual realisation that ageing is not just about the body and the mind. It’s also about getting isolated and lonely from the young ones who surrounded you with their chatter, gossip, mundane stories, demands, and heartaches. As their wings get stronger, your feet start getting wobbly. As their dreams soar, your insomnia becomes habitual, nightmares curl you up in tight hugs and nights get lengthier. Finding myself cleaning empty rooms that were once hotbeds of dirty clothes, torn papers, books, toys, Bluetooth speakers strewn all over and now sparkling clean for lack of human existence made me realise that the wheel that was going up has now slowed, is creaking under the weight of age and is slowly sagging down. 

The phone calls which I make get the standard message, busy right now, will call you later. And I know they are seriously busy trying to make a life, struggling to meet deadlines and breaking backs to achieve success. Just as I did till age hit me. Silently, age has taken me away from the mainstream and placed me on the service road where speed limits are way below the fast pace that is life. 

They grow, they soar and they fly, you walk towards with hypertension, diabetes, creaking knees and loneliness.

Time and tide wait for none. But Father Time can be benevolent. I have more blessings than I can remember to count. I still have enough precious time that will see me through, I have countless people that may not immediately pick up my call but will call me back nonetheless.

Age, I realised is not just a number. It is as much a shrinkage of telomeres as it is about loneliness, solitude and acceptance with grace and humility of how it carries you with it.

Graceful ageing is what it is.

Numbers are relevant, yet irrelevant.

That’s it!

 

Dr. Reina Khadilkar