I remember I read this essay - HOW TO GROW OLD by Bertrand Russel - when I was 15 ,at school with my English teacher. It was an ironical text about how to grow old the right way keeping up strength, will and mental energy.
Why am I thinking about that now? Because it was my birthday some days ago - I know , I didn't tell you anything but I was not in the mood to celebrate, completely alone at home, husband and sons still at the seaside... I realized that every year more I wish to forget my birthday. There's something wrong in that: we must face reality, not escape it, that's something I'm sure of. And once we face it, we must try to handle it and finally accept it. Now, I know many women my age or even over, would think I'm mad because we are still "young", but it is really saddening to reflect on the passing of time. Then, don't tell me that turning forty-something is like turning 30-something! That's lying and you know.
This is why I decided to re-read some pages from that old book I had completely forgotten.
Why am I thinking about that now? Because it was my birthday some days ago - I know , I didn't tell you anything but I was not in the mood to celebrate, completely alone at home, husband and sons still at the seaside... I realized that every year more I wish to forget my birthday. There's something wrong in that: we must face reality, not escape it, that's something I'm sure of. And once we face it, we must try to handle it and finally accept it. Now, I know many women my age or even over, would think I'm mad because we are still "young", but it is really saddening to reflect on the passing of time. Then, don't tell me that turning forty-something is like turning 30-something! That's lying and you know.
This is why I decided to re-read some pages from that old book I had completely forgotten.
Do you want to read some lines with me?
"In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off. A great-grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon, lived to the age of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants. My maternal grandmother, after having nine children who survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she became a widow devoted herself to women's higher education. She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. She used to tell of how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She asked him why he was so melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grandchildren. 'Good gracious,' she exclaimed, 'I have seventy-two grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a miserable existence!' 'Madre snaturale!,' he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular science. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still less of the probable shortness of your future.
As regards health, I have nothing useful to say as I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health, though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.
Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One's thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one's own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one's emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one's mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true". (...)
After Bertrand Russel's words, I'd like to share with you a very short poem by Nazim Hikmet, which one of my friends/colleagues used in her wishing card as a consolation for my sad thoughts about age and the passing of time. She is great! Once again -it's not the first time - she chose the most perfect words to cure my negativity:
"In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off. A great-grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon, lived to the age of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants. My maternal grandmother, after having nine children who survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she became a widow devoted herself to women's higher education. She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. She used to tell of how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She asked him why he was so melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grandchildren. 'Good gracious,' she exclaimed, 'I have seventy-two grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a miserable existence!' 'Madre snaturale!,' he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular science. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still less of the probable shortness of your future.
As regards health, I have nothing useful to say as I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health, though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.
Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One's thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one's own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one's emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one's mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true". (...)
After Bertrand Russel's words, I'd like to share with you a very short poem by Nazim Hikmet, which one of my friends/colleagues used in her wishing card as a consolation for my sad thoughts about age and the passing of time. She is great! Once again -it's not the first time - she chose the most perfect words to cure my negativity:The best sea has yet to be crossed.
The best child has yet to grow up.
Our best days have yet to be lived;
and the best word I wanted to say to you
is the word I have not yet said.
The best child has yet to grow up.
Our best days have yet to be lived;
and the best word I wanted to say to you
is the word I have not yet said.
(Nazim Hikmet 1902-1963)
Translation from the Turkish Richard McKane
I am there, like Frederick's romantic wanderer, standing high on a sea of fog, astonished at the sublime vastness of nature and life but also melancholic at the thought of how fast everything comes to its end... anyway confident that our best days have yet to be lived!