|
 Last week my parents set off for a six week holiday in New Zealand,they were very excited about taking time out to travel about in what my mum kept calling a ‘campervan’. Actually, it's more like a posh ‘motorhome’ complete with fitted cupboards and a bathroom. "You and your sisters have all been travelling and now it's our turn," she said. I suppose that's the good thing about travelling later in life - you can do it, to some degree, in a bit of style - unlike myself who lived like a tramp as I travelled around the world on a shoe string a certain number of years ago.
One of the reasons for their big trip is that my dad has just turned 60
and my mum is 60 later on this year. There must be something in the
air as a few of my friends have parents who’re off roaming around the
globe right now. Something's afoot, don't you think, when you're
working hard every day just to pay the bills, whilst your parents are
living it up like hippies?
Sixty seems to be the new 40. Helen Mirren, Susan Sarrandon, Goldie
Hawn and erm…Judy from Richard and Judy are all loving being in their
sixties. As Judy recently said in an interview, "Sixty is no longer
seen as being elderly and frail, like it used to be. I'm having a
ball."
My parents met when they were 17, married when they were 21 and had 3
kids by the time they were 30. They've worked hard all their lives, so
I guess it's about time they started enjoying themselves. Personally, I
can't imagine being married and having kids at such a young age, mostly
because I'm too damn selfish and immature.
Age is a funny thing. This number we're assigned supposedly defines how
we're meant to look and how we're supposed to act. I know I'm not alone
when I say I've never really acted my age and, in the past, haven't
always looked my age either. Many years ago, when I was at school, I
was extremely small and skinny for my age (I did say many years ago),
whilst a lot of the other girls in my class, aged 11, were wearing
bras. My mum sent me off to the senior school in a Mothercare vest,
which I've never lived down to this day. I'm sure this hugely
humiliating point set a trend for many other late coming milestones
throughout my life, such as my growth spurt in my late teens which saw
me go from a small, skinny, vest-wearing 11 year old, to a tall gangly
thing aged 17.
I even rebelled against my teachers in my final year at school, just as
everyone else had seemingly got over their teenage angst phase and were
trying to knuckle down and pass their exams. I was also the last to get
a boyfriend and when I eventually decided to go to university, it was
just as the rest of my friends were finishing their degrees. In short,
I never seemed to act, or behave, the way I was supposed to for my age.
And things haven't changed too much since then either. I might well
have grown taller (and fatter), but I just never seem to grow up. I'm
fast approaching my mid thirties and whilst many of my friends and
relatives of similar ages are all settling down and having kids, I'm
still behaving like a juvenile teenager who goes out drinking most
weekends. I even got a lecture from my mum recently for the amount of
wine I like to ‘put away’.
A girl who sits opposite me at work is 24 and frequently looks at me in
horror when I tell her I’ve been out mid-week. OK, so this isn't all
about alcohol - but she just doesn't seem to do very much outside of
work at all. So surely this proves that age is just a number that
doesn't actually correspond to a measure of our state-of-mind? How else
can it be explained that I, a mid-thirty something, am being made to
feel guilty by a mid-twenty something?
Unlike my parents, if I ever do end up having kids, I'll be having them
later on in life. In fact, I'll probably be seeing them through school
when I'm in my sixties at this rate, unlike my parents who are now
‘living it up’ and travelling around NZ.
Maybe, by the time I'm 60, I will have grown up a bit and started acting my age? Then again, maybe not.
I like the bit about the amount of wine you like to ‘put away’ and your
Mum admonishing you for such, Cheryl - even though (like you say)
you’re in your mid-thirties. My Mum would never and could never do that
to me as she’s just as bloody bad. In fact, her handbags positively
jingle-jangle with all of the little bottles of spirits she habitually
carries around with her...the lush! E.E.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Columnists