Age turners: Finding freedom in getting older

Next year, I turn 60. It’s the first time I have said that out loud. I know I shouldn’t be embarrassed, but I am. It’s shameful but it hurts me to even think about it. Why? Because that is not who I am, that is not how I feel in my head. I constantly rail at myself for letting it bother me so much. But I am not the only one to feel like this. I recently bumped into two similarly aged friends. I hadn’t replied to an invitation one of them had sent to me about her 60th birthday party. I apologised and congratulated her on her audacity: sending out such a public declaration of her age. She shrugged her shoulders but my other friend looked at me and whispered, “I’ve already turned 60, I know what you mean”. We chatted about why it affected us so much and the upshot was we simply don’t feel our age (as dictated to us by society). We don’t think our age, we don’t act it and more importantly we are not ready to be put in a box and packed away in the back of a forgotten drawer until we die. Because that’s how it feels – our life is now over.